leyla aliyeva, photographed by Frederic aranda.
Editor’s letter.
n the mountains in my homeland, Azerbaijan, there is a time, late in October, when autumn wraps itself around the trees and the streams like a silk scarf. Colours change, clouds descend, even the smell of the earth is suddenly different. This rural idyll is quite a contrast to the city of Baku, our capital, where, like in many world cities, you barely notice the seasons at all – although many visitors tell me that Baku is developing so rapidly that you can time yourself by the speed that our spectacular new buildings are taking shape! Autumn is a theme that runs through this issue, from the fashion in the shoot on page 62, to the in-depth feature on how to enjoy London’s Frieze Art Fair – a highlight of any autumn – on page 46.
Baku continues to transform, regardless of the season, and I am thrilled this was noted by the star architect, Carlos Ott, whom we interview on page 84. Art is at the soul of our city, and one of our most interesting artists, Orkhan Huseynov, was given carte blanche to portray the man-made views of Mercedes-Benz World in Brooklands; see the results on page 108. A name more familiar to many Western readers, Gavin Turk, talks about his part in the Britart movement, on page 56; and it was great to see the Hong Kong gallerist, Pearl Lam, in Baku recently. She tells her story on page 52. Enjoy autumn while it lasts. Winter in Azerbaijan usually means snow in the mountains and cool sunshine by the Caspian Sea: Baku’s legendary contemporary life moves indoors.
Leyla Aliyeva Editor-in-Chief
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In the heart of London’s Mayfair, moments from Bond Street and Hyde Park, Claridge’s hotel embodies the essence of English style. BROOK STREET, MAYFAIR, LONDON W1K 4HR TEL +44 (0)20 7107 8842 RESERVATIONS@CLARIDGES.CO.UK CLARIDGES.CO.UK
the autumn issue
emil khalilov.
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northern lights hong kong garden three-pointed star who are you? give my regards to matthew odin’s feast
Contents. sketches Bling with a zing The jeweller Yana Zaikin is the purveyor of old-school, grand-scale rocks to the world’s glitterati.
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undercover artists’ collective Slavs and Tatars are a highly regarded, and highly secretive, art collective. They’re also very tricky.
25
king of the jungle The designer Philipp Plein invites us to his Cannes mansion.
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avant garde light of the north
34
muscovy pot luck In Moscow, ostentatious is out, supper clubs are in.
37
the Brooklyn underground Brooklyn’s art scene isn’t dead: it’s just moved to cooler venues.
38
Austere Oslo is becoming an arts metropolis.
canvas Brazilian Beauty We meet Adriana Lima, the supermodel from Salvador and face and body of Victoria’s Secret.
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too cool to frieze There’s doing Frieze, and there’s doing Frieze. How to do the world’s coolest art fair with panache.
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shisha chic Chilling out with the sweet smoke from a shisha is now becoming a global pastime.
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the aura of ornella The award-winning actress Ornella Muti on her 40-year career, cinema’s future and why she loves Azerbaijan.
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Boy racer The Azerbaijani artist Orkhan Huseynov reimagines Mercedes-Benz World in Brooklands, outside London.
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the edge of art reality Suffering from Fair Fatigue? You need to hit the fringe. We bring you six of the coolest side-fairs.
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wedding day style Welcome to the world of nuptials in Azerbaijan where, if it’s not lavish, it’s nothing, darling.
catalogue
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seeds of life Reza Deghati’s images of coffee.
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destination: lankaran The lowdown on Azerbaijan’s coastal tea capital.
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the artist We meet Elena Hagverdiyeva at her studio in Baku.
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history lesson Did the Vikings originally come from Azerbaijan?
pearly queen At home with the Shanghai-born super-gallerist, Pearl Lam.
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the illustrator Leyla Aliyeva is inspired by autumn.
a cup of gt with gavin turk
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maven Three ultra-stylish art collectors at Art Basel.
He was one of the original Young British Artists. Opinionated as ever, Gavin Turk grants Baku an exclusive interview.
stranger in paradise Monochrome chic meets mountain mystery in our autumn fashion shoot with a positively pastoral backdrop.
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one man Brand
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state of the ott
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Craig David, UK garage pop’s golden boy, is back.
Carlos Ott is transforming cityscapes around the world. Now the Uruguayan architect has his sights set on Azerbaijan.
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my art Fashion super-blogger Bip Ling reveals her art addiction.
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street feast The new restaurants shaking up Baku’s dining scene.
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new Baku People, parties, places and events.
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taBula rasa Polly Morgan, artist with taxidermic tendencies.
COVER. Photographed by jEssiCa baCkhaus. Styled by maRy fEllOwEs. Jacket by DOnna kaRan. Top by PhOEbE English aRChiVE.
art. culture. azerbaijan. a conde nast publication autumn 2013
EDITOR-IN-CHIEF EDITORIAL DIRECTOR, CONDE NAST
ART DIRECTOR
Leyla Aliyeva Darius Sanai
Daren Ellis
MANAGING EDITOR
Maria Webster
ACTING DEpuTy EDITOR/CHIEF Sub-EDITOR
Helen Crockett
EDITORIAL ASSISTANT
Caroline Davies
EDITOR-AT-LARGE CONTRIbuTING EDITORS
Simon de Pury Anna Blundy Michael Idov Natalie Livingstone Emin Mammadov Claire Wrathall
CONTRIbuTING ART DIRECTOR
Mark Hudson
CONTRIbuTING FASHION DIRECTOR
Mary Fellowes
pICTuRE EDITOR Sub-EDITOR ACTING pRODuCTION CONTROLLER
DEpuTy EDITOR, RuSSIAN bAku MAGAzINE ASSOCIATE DIRECTOR, FREuD COMMuNICATIONS DIRECTOR, MEDIA LAND LLC IN bAku / ADVERTISING COORDINATION IN bAku
DEpuTy MANAGING DIRECTOR pRESIDENT, CONDE NAST INTERNATIONAL
Liz Leahy Ming Liu Dawn Crosby
Tamilla Akhmedova Hannah Pawlby Khayyam Abdinov +994 50 286 8661; medialand.baku@gmail.com Matanet Bagieva
Albert Read Nicholas Coleridge
BAKU magazine has taken all reasonable efforts to trace the copyright owners of all works and images and obtain permissions for the works and images reproduced in this magazine. In the event that any of the untraceable copyright owners come forward after publication, BAKU magazine will endeavour to rectify the position accordingly. BAKU magazine is distributed globally by COMAG Specialist, Tavistock Works, Tavistock Road, West Drayton, Middlesex, UB7 7QX; tel +44 1895 433800. © 2013 The Condé Nast Publications Ltd. BAKU magazine is published quarterly by The Condé Nast Publications Ltd, Vogue House, Hanover Square, London W1S 1JU; tel +44 20 7499 9080; fax +44 20 7493 1469. Colour origination by CLX Europe Media Solutions Ltd. Printed by Taylor Bloxham Limited, Leicester. All rights reserved. Reproduction in whole or in part without written permission is strictly prohibited. 16 Baku.
Contributors. Tom Wolfe
art directed our outré shisha shoot. See the results on page 90. What star sign are you? Capricorn. What does that mean for you this autumn? Travelling, working as an artist and creative projects coming to fruition. Who are you in love with? I found an old friend, Veronica Segovia, who I worked with in Tokyo 18 years ago. She taught me so much about life, friendship and Chilean cooking. I’m in love with her right now. What’s your favourite dream? Living in the 1920s avant-garde scene in Berlin.
Andreas Schlaegel
reported on the burgeoning art scene in Oslo; his story is on page 34. What star sign are you? Aquarius. What does that mean for you this autumn? I’m not so much of a believer in star signs. In German, Aquarius means ‘Wassermann’, the water man, and I thought beer man would be a more appropriate star sign for me. But with high hopes for autumn I hope to graduate to champagne man soon. Who are you in love with? Angela. What’s your favourite dream? To play the Roskilde Festival’s main stage. Again.
Jessica Backhaus
photographed our fashion story in Azerbaijan’s ancient city of Gabala. Check it out on page 62. What star sign are you? Sagittarius. What does that mean for you this autumn? Freedom and independence, and my first big museum show, at Kunsthalle Erfurt, in Germany (until 24 November). Who are you in love with? It’s written in the stars. What’s your favourite dream? Where everything’s possible and everyone’s in love.
Jonathan Heaf
interviewed the Victoria’s Secret supermodel Adriana Lima. See what she had to say on page 42. What star sign are you? Pisces. What does that mean for you this autumn? Absolutely nothing at all. Who are you in love with? Valentine, Gigi, my family. What’s your favourite dream? Any dream involving Bill Murray dressed as an enormous kaleidoscopic caterpillar.
Shonagh Rae
Summer Litchfield
met the Russian jeweller behind Emily H London. Turn to page 21. What star sign are you? Scorpio. What does that mean for you this autumn? It means my favourite time of year. Plus mine and my daughter’s birthdays on the way in November; hers the day before mine. Who are you in love with? See above. What’s your favourite dream? The one that I wake up from smiling.
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Illustrations by stefano marra
illustrated the feature written by Michael Idov, editor-in-chief of GQ Russia, on Moscow supper clubs. See page 37. What star sign are you? Cancer. What does that mean for you this autumn? I don’t like the idea of predictions, I prefer to be surprised. Who are you in love with? My family obviously, but if we are talking about coveting, I have just seen the most perfect pair of brogue boots. What’s your favourite dream? Putting on those boots!
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Yana Zaikin, photographed at the Connaught hotel, London, 2013. Rings from the Fleur de Vie collection (left); cufflinks from the Celestial collection (below).
bling with a zing
As An only child in st petersburg, yAnA ZAikin loved jewellery. she designed her first pieces As A teenAger, And is now the purveyor of old-school, grAnd-scAle rocks to the world’s glitterAti. Summer LitchfieLd meets her. portrAits by jean goLdSmith
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ana Zaikin is no wallflower, at least when it comes to jewels. The Russianborn designer’s pieces might be inspired by flowers but there is nothing shy or modest about them. Don’t expect her Emily H London line to have the itsy-bitsy friendship bracelets, dainty rings or cutesy pendants that have become so commonplace these days. From the lush, botanical Emilia collection to the Art Deco, red-carpetworthy Eve of Milady line, this is grown-up, gorgeous, gobstopper gems all the way. Zaikin herself is more old-school glam than dress-down casual; more Chanel and Manolos than jeans and Converse. Sipping a morning espresso in the Coburg Bar at the
Connaught hotel in London’s Mayfair, she is soft-spoken and elegant in a cream skirt and cream Dior blouse, her long ginger hair perfectly coiffed. ‘I grew up as an only child in St Petersburg,’ Zaikin tells me, ‘and like most young girls I loved accessory stores full of shiny trinkets, but my mother did not approve. She insisted on showing me what real jewellery was, and took me to the Hermitage to show me the royal jewels. I also fell in love with my grandmother’s
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An amethyst ring from the Emilia collection.
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19th-century French pieces that seemed so unusual, like nothing I had ever seen before.’ So it was at the precocious age of 16 that Zaikin designed her first important piece of jewellery: a pendant made from two cameos her mother had given her that she took to a local jewellers to set according to her own design. ‘Everyone seemed to fall in love with it, which boosted my confidence and led me to start designing for friends,’ she says. Zaikin’s jewellery-making hobby continued throughout university (she studied fine art at Herzen University, St Petersburg), but she never imagined it would turn into a career. ‘In the same way some people doodle faces, I would doodle rings and necklaces,’ she laughs self-consciously. However, over the years demand for her one-of-akind and extravagant pieces gradually rose, and today Zaikin’s bespoke clientele (she refuses point-blank to mention any names) has grown significantly and internationally.
‘My Mother insisted on showing Me what real jewellery was, and took Me to the herMitage to show Me the royal jewels.’
These ese days days her clients mostly da reside in London, Moscow, New York and the UAE. ‘Citizens of the world,’ she says. Visiting the workshop in Rome where her most intricate pieces are made is the best part of her job, she says. ‘It’s a small, third-generation atelier. I go there every other week for
two to three days to oversee the process,’ she explains. ‘I spend time exchanging ideas with the goldsmith, stone cutter and stone setter. They are working on a complicated bespoke piece at the moment, featuring a rare, 40-carat Burmese sapphire.’ But Zaikin is not interested in supplying the super rich with spoils whatever the cost. As her passion and knowledge of stones and their settings has grown, so has her conscience for using only ethically mined and treated stones: ‘I love the idea of creating highjewellery heirloom pieces which feel good to wear not only because of the outstanding quality and craftsmanship, but because all the stones are ethically sourced. My clients are mostly confident, beautiful women who are celebrating their femininity and who are also conscious about the environment and the condition that we leave this world in for future generations.’ Earlier this year, having formerly relied only on word-of-mouth from her bespoke clients, Zaikin decided to ‘go public’ and launch her first collections under the name Emily H London (after her daughter Emily Hannah). It includes the aforementioned Emilia and Eve of Milady lines as well as Celestial – a range of diamond and tanzanite cufflinks for the gem-loving gentleman that have a secret compartment for a special
message or prayer, and can be personalized further with initials or symbols spelt out in the precious stones. Last month Emily H London launched the Fleur de Vie collection, which includes a 184-carat sapphire cabochon harvest moon pendant, as well as two rings: one a sensuous calla lily in diamonds and emeralds (£28,000), the other an exotic Ceylon sapphire ring made up of 400 sapphires, diamonds and tourmalines (£42,000). ‘A magical blue flower that brings you love,’ says Zaikin of the latter. Although she has never visited Baku, her closest friend is from there and she also has Azerbaijani clients, so Zaikin feels she has a good idea what women from this part of the world want: ‘Azerbaijani women are very glamorous, they like to dress up. For example, my friend loves big earrings; she’ll wear them at night, during the day, to the gym. Studs and tiny hoops are not for her. She’s only looking for statement pieces. That’s my experience with Azerbaijani women. But then,’ adds Zaikin, ‘this is my experience everywhere because I’m not making things you wouldn’t notice.’ So where does Zaikin wear her Emily H jewels? ‘To the opera,’ she smiles. ‘Now that we live in London, I tend to stay in Europe rather than travel back to St Petersburg. I try not to miss any significant event at the Royal Opera House, La Scala or Opéra de Paris.’ And where does she go for downtime, to gain inspiration for her future creations? ‘To Puglia, to a 19thcentury trullo we bought while visiting friends several years ago. I love the local food – the burrata, mozzarella, orecchiette pasta with porcini mushrooms.’ Somewhere down the line, Zaikin has plans for an appointment-only boutique in Mayfair, which will showcase her Emily H London pieces, all of which are limited edition. Customers would also be able to bring in stones they wish to be made into pieces of jewellery. ‘In my work, I meet so many people and learn so much about them over lunch or a coffee,’ she says. ‘To be part of the birth of something new, something that will last forever, that the client will hopefully love so much that they will wear it everyday... That is why I do what I do.’
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Yana Zaikin’s collections can be found at emilyhlondon.co.uk.
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undercover artists’ collective SlavS and tatarS are a highly regarded, and highly Secretive, art collective. they Show at Frieze, they challenge conceptionS oF the middle eaSt, and they are pretty tricky, aS Caroline davies diScoverS.
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Clockwise from above: ‘Never Give Up the Fruit’ (2012), hand-blown glass bulbs; ‘Régions d’être’ (2012), at Art Basel in 2012; ‘Tongue Twist Her’ (2013); ‘Beyonsense’ (2012), at MoMA, New York, all Slavs and Tatars.
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e don’t discuss our names. We don’t talk about who we are; we don’t talk about where we study.’ Slavs and Tatars are not easy to pin down. The ‘international art collective’ was founded in 2006. They have exhibited at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Pompidou in Paris and The Tate in London, as well as Art Basel and the Venice and Moscow Biennales. Their works – like the 2011 Monobrow Manifesto, for Frieze – is full of wit. Yet little is known about their artists and the group retains an aura of secrecy. When a key member of the group agrees to be interviewed, it is under the condition of complete anonymity. I speak to him at his home in France, where he has spent six nights over the past three months. He is not French, but does not want me to reveal anything more about his identity, which could be seen as either noble or slightly precious, given the existence of Google.
‘A lot of artists’ work is about something in their lives,’ he says. ‘Our work is not about us. The first time you see an interesting piece of work, it’s a human instinct to want to know: “Who is it [by]? Where are they from? What do they do?” It’s not particularly healthy, so we don’t want to indulge it.’ Serious and considered, my interviewee chews over my questions before slipping into rapid-fire philosophical arguments. His voice is strong and self-assured, rather like a young university lecturer, filled with intellectual – almost radical – zeal. The group are currently working on an exhibition on a Greek island and the focus is on linguistics – a key theme in their work. ‘We look at
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East and East. If we are looking at influentialism, we are not just looking at what that means from France or Britain, but what does it mean to be a Slav influentialist? What is Russian influentialism on Iran?’ The group produce books to accompany their shows, although their most recognized one was inspired by an existing publication. Molla Nasreddin was a highly sophisticated satirical magazine published in Azerbaijan in the early 20th century, and for their 2011 book, Slavs and Tatars reprinted a
source of, not all, but many of the problems in the region… We are increasingly living in a partisan world where we read things we agree with. It is important to engage with things you disagree with.’ The group added captions to the covers and illustrations, to explain their position. A few of the caricatures didn’t make the cut. ‘Some of the humour was
‘We use art as a premise and a platform for research, for knoWledge, and for engagement With the public. art is a medium; it is a means to an end and not an end in itself.’ Slavs and Tatars’ work (from top): ‘A Monobrow Manifesto’ (2011), exhibited at Frieze, 2011; ‘PrayWay’ (2012); ‘Before the Before, After the After’ (2012). The group’s regional focus explains their name; their work is all about the area ‘east of the former Berlin Wall and west of the Great Wall of China’, and their art, lectures and books are liberally splattered with ‘isms’, ‘ists’ and ‘phobes’, intended to reframe the region and make people think twice. ‘Not many people are doing it,’ he says about the focus on the region. ‘There is too much of a divide between East and West. We try to look between
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selection of the covers, illustrations and caricatures. Molla Nasreddin: The Magazine That Would’ve, Could’ve, Should’ve is perhaps the one project that Slavs and Tatars would like to define them. ‘It was the most important periodical of the Muslim world, but had never been presented in English,’ says my interviewee. ‘If we believe that political Islam is the biggest challenge to the West, why was this not available before? Why did it take artists in the 21st century to make it available?’ The group discovered the publication in a Baku bookshop, he tells me, adding that ‘there isn’t a larger cultural, historical or religious understanding of it’. That said, the project wasn’t a simple one. The group spent two years tracking down someone who could translate all three scripts: Cyrillic, Latin and Arabic Azerbaijani. But understanding the text threw up new issues. ‘As well as being important historically, it was stuff that we disagreed with,’ he says. ‘Molla Nasreddin agrees with modernity in a Western way [and] that Islam is the
pretty tough,’ he says. ‘Some of it I couldn’t print. That sort of stuff doesn’t serve any purpose. Our priorities lie with the integrity of the work, but also with the audience, in terms of making it as accessible as possible. Confrontation is the last thing we want.’ Although the group are putting the spotlight on the region, they are ‘in no way’ representing it. ‘That’s not our job. We’re looking at a particular region and exploring certain intellectual, polemical, literary and other affinities we have with it… We use art as a premise and a platform for research, knowledge, and engagement with the public. Art is a medium; it is a means to an end and not an end in itself.’
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Visit slavsandtatars.com.
Benoit Pailley/new MuseuM. orestis argiroPoulos. secession/oliver ottenschläger.
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attempts to Cyrillise languages. It is similar to sexual dominance,’ he says, cryptically. Which perhaps goes some way to explain the group’s recent work, Tongue Twist Her (2013), a pole-dancing platform complete with a three-metrelong red tongue wrapped around the pole. (Slavs and Tatars are well known for their quirky installations.)
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Clockwise, from left: Philipp Plein; with the model Isabeli Fontana; the autumn/ winter 2013 show in Milan; the boutique in Baku, which opened in 2012.
king of the jungle InternatIonal Party boy, rock-star couturIer and InterIors kIng – the luxury desIgner PhIlIPP PleIn Is takIng on the world, one skull-bejewelled t-shIrt at a tIme. lucie greene meets hIm at hIs lavIsh mansIon In cannes, and gets a taste of the überParty lIfestyle.
argantuan, baroque stone planters are the first indication of what’s in store for me as I step inside the gates of designer Philipp Plein’s mansion, perched high on a hill above Cannes. It’s all go, with workers bustling back and forth, putting finishing touches to pillars surrounding a vast swimming pool (they’ll have speakers and LED lights built in). I walk past a matt-finish black Land Rover in the baking midday heat as Ludivine, Plein’s assistant, bounds outside, sporting hotpants and a mini tank top. She ushers me into the grand entrance, an extravaganza of cream mother-of-pearl, white 18th-century cladding, a towering white sculpture and, behind it, a neon sign that reads: ‘Jungle of the King’. Plein doesn’t do understatement, it turns out. But then – as a party boy, rock-star couturier and interiors guru to Euromillionaires and oligarchs alike, why should he? Excess is his brand, and one that currently is persuading legions of wellheeled vacationers to furnish their holiday
mansions with his vast marble tables, crystal lamps and leather pillows, and party in his printed, ultra-mini cocktail dresses, python clutches and skullbejewelled T-shirts. Walk the streets of Cannes, Moscow or St Tropez, and the chances are you’ll spot numerous skull motifs (the brand’s symbol) on the beach and in the nightclubs. In 15 years, Plein has established himself alongside the ranks of Roberto Cavalli and Dolce & Gabbana as a lifestyle brand synonymous with a certain type of global, partying high roller. And word is spreading. In 2012 alone, Plein opened new stores in Baku, Milan, Dubai, Seoul, Macau, Berlin, Amsterdam, St Petersburg and Marbella, plus a second shop in
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( Clockwise, from far right, top: a look from the autumn/ winter 2013 show; Plein in the Düsseldorf store; the Baku boutique; Plein (middle) with the photographer Terry Richardson (seated) and models wearing the latest collection; Grace Jones, who performed at the autumn/winter 2013 show in Milan.
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dressing all the football players. They’re the ones buying it. A football player is young, he’s rich and he doesn’t want to look like a banker, a manager, a lawyer. He wants to be like a rock star. This is what the brand stands for – it’s fun, luxury and it’s not mainstream. These are the people who like to go out and party and enjoy this kind of lifestyle.’ The brand is also known for its crowd-pleasing shows. ‘They are one of the biggest at Milan Fashion Week and we have 4,000 people attending. They are huge events, it’s more than just a party. People always expect more. It’s really hard because when you have Grace Jones – who’s a legend and totally hot – now we need something super hot.’ The next ‘super hot’ addition is the brand’s campaign front woman, the Australian rapper Iggy
Azalea (suitably controversial for her hit songs ‘Pu$$y’ and ‘Two Times’). ‘Fashion is f*cked up because you always work one year ahead,’ says Plein. ‘If you’re too far ahead or too trendy, people don’t buy you because you’re too crazy. You have to find the right balance; we call it just the right amount of wrong.’ Plein’s Cannes mansion is one of six lavish properties he uses as homes, entertainment spaces and part showcases for his interiors line. As I step into the house, Ludivine offers me a glass of champagne while also asking me to remove my shoes (you know, because of all the white). What unfolds is a sprawling temple of opulence – rooms decked in cream-leather Eames chairs and angular marble tables; free-standing infinity baths (‘I didn’t think it existed already, so I built it’); a sauna in red onyx, back-lit by LEDs; vases coated in python; and cushions emblazoned with diamanté skulls. An entire wall is decorated with cut-mirror panels and two zebra heads. ‘We just bought the house next door,’ reveals Plein. ‘We’re going to make it like a mini village, a new Versailles.’ Sat in front of me, tanned, stubbled, in a slim-fit tailored white shirt, distressed jeans, with charm bracelets and studded loafers (so, he gets to wear shoes!), it
strikes me that Plein is actually rather handsome – much more so than the paparazzi snaps would indicate. In person, he talks in a proclamatory, fast, staccato way, firing out occasional ‘f*cks’ for emphasis. But he is sincere and likeable too. I start with the inspiration for the house. ‘It’s called “Jungle of the King” because what happens in the jungle stays in the jungle. You can go crazy here. You can be Tarzan, you can be Jane; it’s a place where you can hide, you can seek, and you can be romantic, mysterious and dangerous,’ explains Plein. He has also worked the jungle theme into the design – hence, he says, the zebras, the palms, the elephant-shaped salt and pepper shakers, and of course the furs. You get the sense that the designer has literally let his imagination run riot. Plein is in Cannes to oversee the finishing touches to the house and also work with his design team on the new collection. The team and I are
GETTY. TERRY RICHARDSON.
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Moscow. Plein’s empire includes fashion, shoes, accessories, homewares and children’s wear. By the end of this year he will have 33 boutiques. Not bad, considering that the brand is still privately owned by Plein who is just 35 years old. Google Plein and a raft of celebrities spring up. There are his A-list friends (Heidi Klum, Bono, Naomi Campbell), his spectacular Milan fashion shows (featuring the model Ed Westwick and Grace Jones, who recently performed), his sexy campaign stars (Lindsay Lohan and Terry Richardson, the former he is rumoured to have had a fling with – though Plein won’t be drawn on this). And, of course, his lavish parties. It’s all part of the image, or the dream, that he’s selling, and one that he’s good at embodying. ‘We’re a young brand and we’re targeting the new generation who wants to pursue luxury. Our brand is not conservative. We’re not a Hugo Boss or an Armani,’ he explains. ‘We are
served lunch by Plein’s private chef, who rustles up a starter of seared foie gras and salad, beef carpaccio and ice cream – consumed with more flutes of champagne. It would be easy to assume, given all this, that Plein is part of some Euro royalty who has set up his label as a vanity project, but in fact the reality is far from it. Philipp Plein, the brand, is one that Plein in many ways has built from the ground up. The party boy image is just what sells it. Plein grew up in Germany, the son of middle-class parents, who sent him to what he describes as a conservative boarding school, before he started studying law, at Friedrich-Alexander University. Upon inheriting 20,000DM in 1998 from his grandfather, however, he decided to do something more creative and launched a small, exclusive furniture collection. The brand became popular but it really took off in 2004 when Plein added fashion to the line. The designer’s background has stood him in good stead for building the brand: an understanding of contracts and law has been particularly useful, and his business savvy led him to transfer the company headquarters to tax-friendly Switzerland, and also keep complete control of it. Even the parties which Plein is so famed for are – one gets the sense – very much
a strategic move. Throughout the afternoon, while guests sip Moët, Plein drinks Diet Coke, and admits he doesn’t really drink. That evening in Cannes, out for dinner with the design team, it’s a lavish affair, but also one in which Plein is the consummate host. He orders for the table – platters of sushi, steak, cocktails complete with fizzing fireworks. We’re ushered to a plummy table in a VIP spot for dancing, 2004 Dom Pérignon and bottles of Belvedere Vodka. ‘The other big club want us to go there,’ says Ludivine at one point, eyeing her phone. ‘It looks good for Philipp to be seen in their clubs.’ Plein’s boutiques are like his homes: slick spaces covered in leather, marble and lacquer. ‘Stores are the key to success for me,’ he says. ‘[They] make the brand visible and give you the possibility to create a world when you enter [them]. Like Gucci or Vuitton, you enter their world – it’s like church!’
‘If you’re too ahead or too trendy, people don’t buy you. you have to fInd the rIght balance; we call It just the rIght amount of wrong.’ His Baku store is one of his latest additions, and Plein says he was really impressed by the capital city. ‘It’s interesting,’ he tells me. ‘It’s a bit Russian, a bit Arabic. There are a lot of young successful people doing business there. There’s a good atmosphere, that’s my feeling.’ In other words, prime territory for the Philipp Plein brand. Fashion critics have been quick to pigeonhole Plein, for his celeb-packed shows, commercial collections and popularity with a distinctive, affluent audience, but the brand’s rapid rise speaks for itself. ‘At the end of the day the success is not made from the fashion shows, it’s made in the commercial part – if people buy your clothes or not. There might be some people who love a fashion show, but the clothes don’t sell. It’s about commercial success and luckily we have huge commercial success,’ says Plein. ‘The brand is selling and this is what puts us in a position to do all these crazy things.’
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Philipp Plein’s Baku boutique is in the JW Marriott Absheron hotel. 31 Baku.
20/22 Khojaly Avenue 路 Baku, Azerbaijan 994 12 480 21 12 路 www.sumakh.az
trends in art & Culture
1 2 3 Cultural MRI:
Meme:
Heart & Soul:
Oslo, where gas makes art.
Michael Idov’s home supper club.
The Brooklyn underground.
avant garde
33 Baku.
Light of the north
When the young artist Snorre Hvamen wakes up, he enjoys a fantastic view. From the fishing boat he has made his home (and parts of which he is converting into a floating gallery) he can overlook the Oslo Fjord and the new urban developments of Aker Brygge and the Tjuvholmen peninsula. If the view is not obstructed by the large cruise ships that anchor nearby, he can see the stunningly placed Operahuset (opened in 2008, designed by local architecture company Snøhetta, notable also for its award-winning design of the public library in Alexandria, Egypt) and She Lies, a 12m-high glass-andsteel installation on a floating island by the Berlin-based art star Monica Bonvicini. But this morning was diferent. There was a man lying on deck, huddled in a blanket. Having been woken up, the sleeper immediately burst into a torrent of anger about his life: poverty, fleeing an African home country, ending up with no place to sleep. Hvamen thought twice, and instead of kicking the man of his boat, he ofered him a job – on it. Welcome to Oslo, where community values and the pragmatism of pitching in prevail, even in the often-so
overlooking the oslo Fjord, one can see ‘she She Lies (2010) is a glass-andsteel installation by Monica Bonvicini in Oslo Harbour.
Architecture is the focus of an upcoming show at Kunstnernes Hus (the ‘Artists’ House’).
egocentric arts. This is perhaps best represented by last year’s appointment of the culture minister Hadia Tajik, the youngest (and first Muslim) minister, and the 29-year-old daughter of immigrants from Pakistan. When in ofce for just a few months, Tajik presented the biggest national budget for the arts – ever. Visual arts saw the greatest increase, to a level that probably exceeds
the per capita support for visual arts of any other nation in the known universe. At the same time Oslo has been rated as the most expensive city in the world (leaving Tokyo behind). It serves as the capital to a small country – Norway has only a little more than five-million inhabitants, with around 1.5m living in the larger Oslo area – making it among the four wealthiest countries in the world. This is due to the efciency the country has displayed, not only in exploiting its vast oil and gas deposits through the mainly state-owned energy company
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lies’, an installation Statoil (itself a major corporate collector of international art), but also by applying a strict budgetary policy of accumulating the revenue in a gigantic oil fund (a staggering $US745bn), and making only four per cent of it available to the annual national budget. Where and how to spend this money has been hotly debated, notably during September’s elections whereby the newly elected – and second female – prime minister, Erna Solberg, signalled a historic right shift in the country. How this will afect future arts spending is yet to be seen, but it’s fair to say that Norway will remain among the richest nations well into the future. The country’s economic success story is apparent in the social democratic values reflected in the Scandinavian welfare state, but may be most visible in the arts. And it makes sense. Without question, young Norwegian artists, such
IllustratIon by revenge Is sWeet. 1857, oslo. alamy. CorbIs. getty. rex.
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cultural Mri: Austere Oslo is becoming an arts metropolis, mainly due to the state’s oil wealth. Andreas Schlaegel reports.
Culture minister Hadia Tajik (left) was appointed last year; the artist Bjarne Melgaard (below), at his show in London.
as Matias Faldbakken, Bjarne Melgaard, Gardar Eide Einarsson and Ida Ekblad – to only mention a prominent few – have in the last 10 years become household names in the international art scene, their work exhibited on a global scale. And international exposure is crucial for young artists. Many here have benefitted from the support of the Ofce for Contemporary Art – a joint venture by the cultural and foreign ministries – which has helped fund, mediate and organize their projects abroad. During her eight-year tenure as its director, Marta Kuzma was able to host significant symposia and produce memorable publications (such as Whatever Happened to Sex in Scandinavia, 2008), and she helped to create an institution with international appeal, inviting artists and curators from around the world to experience Oslo first hand. ‘Public funding is securing a greater sense of diversity,’ says Eivind Furnesvik, who runs Standard Oslo, arguably the most influential commercial gallery in town. So will Oslo become the next art capital? Furnesvik doesn’t think so. ‘[It] doesn’t need to. It concentrates on being a big town with big possibilities. Artists are coming back.’ Artists such as Steinar Haga Kristensen and Mai Hofstad Gunnes from Brussels, and Marius Engh and Ida Ekblad from Berlin. And not only artists. After a decade in Berlin, the gallerist Atle Gerhardsen, along with partners Nicolai and Marina Gerner-Mathisen, opened a branch of his gallery, Gerhardsen Gerner, in Tjuvholmen, showing, for example, Georg Herold’s first solo exhibition in Oslo. The gallery resides just a few steps from the Astrup Fearnley Museum, the privately funded mega-collection of big names (Jef Koons, Anselm Kiefer, Damien Hirst), which is sponsored by the Swedish oil firm Lundin Petroleum. Private funding does have its critics, however. ‘There is still a lot to wish for,’ remarks Marianne Hultman from Oslo’s oldest institution for contemporary art, Oslo Kunstforening (the Oslo Fine Art Society), which recently held a retrospective of the sexually charged work by the grande dame of the Los Angeles art world, Judy Chicago. ‘Many companies, for example, prefer to build their own private collections. There is nothing wrong with that, but they should also acknowledge and support the independent art scene.’ The Astrup Fearnley Museum calls a fancy Renzo Piano-designed building home, which opened last year to big fanfare. But once inside, and after
on a Floating island by the berlin-based artist Monica bonvicini. The artist Are Mokkelbost’s ‘OK’ exhibition (left and right) was shown at the Henie Onstad Kunstsenter (top, far right) this summer.
admiring the fabulous views, it appears to have been built more to impress investors than to serve the art on display. Indeed, the whole architecture of Tjuvholmen may appear flashy from afar, but on a closer look it is bland and surprisingly crammed. The notable exception is The Thief, a luxurious, six-star hotel with one of the most exclusive restaurants in town, and where the art decorating its walls is loaned from Astrup Fearnley next door. If a little grittier than Copenhagen or Stockholm, Oslo has exciting architecture to show of. One of the coolest art-related sites in town is Kunstnernes
Hus. The ‘Artists’ House’ is a beautiful building that is an early example of functionalist tendencies in Norwegian architecture. Director Mats Stjernstedt’s upcoming exhibition, ‘Model as Ruin’, is a celebration of architecture. Co-curated with the architecture professor Mari Lending, it is a reconstruction of the Oslo Architecture Exhibition of 1931 and assembles numerous historic models of important Modernist buildings, among them a model of Kunstnernes Hus itself. The space combines galleries, a book shop and a restaurant, and it hosts One Night Only, a weekly one-night presentation of art events, which has made
Kunstnernes Hus fashionable with the young crowd. The Khio (the Oslo National Academy of the Arts) degree show is also on display here, which brings us back to Snorre Hvamen, the artist on the boat, who participated in the exhibition. He converted the venue’s dramatic staircase into a functional greenhouse with edible plants. Another architectural gem is a mere 20-minute ride on the public bus from central Oslo: the Henie Onstad Kunstsenter in Høvikodden, founded in 1968 by the Olympic figure skater Sonja Henie and her shipping magnate husband Niels Onstad. One of the most striking museums in all of Scandinavia – a flamboyant piece of architectural Neo-Expressionism – it was never intended to house a collection, but instead to function as a laboratory and to foster the creation of contemporary, experimental art. Having done exactly
avant garde
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The Renzo Piano-designed Astrup Fearnley Museum (right and middle); the artist Matias Faldbakken in 2010 (below).
have invited the Berlin-based artist Matthew Antezzo for a residency. The installation ‘looks at the issues of gentrification in downtown Oslo’, says Antezzo, where real estate is an issue, with limited space available for housing and prices that are still ridiculously high. Still, that doesn’t stop the afuent from creating the surroundings they desire, as plans are underway to open a huge new Nasjonalmuseet on the harbour, and to relocate the Munch museum to a flashy new building nearby. Then there’s the Oslo Kunsthall, a contemporary art space close to the central railway station, run by Will Bradley, formerly of the Modern Institute in Glasgow. I was there for a show curated by the dean of the Oslo National Academy of the Arts, Vanessa Ohlraun, featuring, among others, a presentation of a magazine by the art platform Frank, which is run by the artists Liv Bugge and Sille Storihle. Back in the Grønland district, on the other side of the central railway, is the gallery of Esperanza Rosales, an American who arrived in the city via Brussels and Berlin, and who started her gallery just over a year ago. Called VI, VII (‘sixes and sevens’) it’s all understatement: in two small rooms situated in a basement she has shown consistently great work, such as an exhibition curated by Ida Ekblad and Eirik Sæthe, featuring an old black-andwhite film by the Norwegian folklorist Klara Semb that records traditional techniques of braiding, with the calm eye of an ethnographer. VI, VII has been accepted to show at this year’s Frieze Art Fair in London, and yet in Oslo, Rosales’ work is not receiving sufcient attention, suggests the collector Petter Snare. ‘It’s tough to get into Oslo. You may find that Norwegians don’t really like other people. There’s an old story of a Norwegian on a mountain in vast emptiness. The moment he spots another Norwegian on another mountain in the far distance, he hollers out to him: “Go away!”’
The landmark Opera House was designed by the local firm Snøhetta.
that for almost 50 years, it can now boast a rich legacy and collection. The two best Norwegian shows of the summer, maybe even the year, were here: the artist and musician Are Mokkelbost’s ‘OK’ exhibition, a visual and aural landscape of gigantic printed banners and complementing electronic compositions; and ‘Arbeidstid’ (‘Work Time’), a group show curated by Milena Hoegsberg that negotiated the
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importance of labour in people’s lives, and the time and space that it occupies. It was entertaining as well as intellectually challenging. I didn’t want to leave. Back in the heart of the city, the young art scene is thriving in the immigrant neighbourhood of Grønland. Here you’ll find 1857, an artist-run not-for-profit space, founded by Stian Eide Kluge and Stefen Håndlykken, and located in a small shopfront with a low ceiling. Behind it an extensive industrial space opens up. It’s refreshingly raw, making work shown here look great, but also particularly fragile, such as Aude Pariset’s installation in the recent exhibition, ‘Sunbathers’. Around the corner from 1857 is the architect-run art space, 0047, named after the country’s telephone prefix. Currently the artists Goro Tronsmo and Kine Lillestrøm are redesigning its space – a project that references an earlier, similar ‘Projekt 0047’ in Berlin – and they
Psychic cabaret and crudités (2013), Camilla Wills, shown at the ‘Sunbathers’ exhibition at the art space, 1857.
I’m not sure. There’s a new email from Snorre Hvamen in my inbox: ‘I met the guy who slept on the boat just now,’ he says. ‘He is applying to get work in the fishing industry, just beside the boat. He smiles and has papers for joining the bonanza in Norway.’ Good luck!
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IllustratIon by shonagh rae. natalIa Pokrovskaya/Ivan skorIkov.
‘oslo concentrates on being a big town with big possibilities.’
2
Meme: Cultured Muscovites are reacting against bling restaurants by setting up home supper clubs, says Michael Idov.
muscovy pot luck
It is 9:30 on a Thursday night in Moscow, a bit over an hour since the guests arrived, and I am working up a sweat serving glass after glass of spiced-rum punch and mixing deceptively strong Dark & Stormys. Closer to 10, the slightly soused guests finally move to the table at the urging of the chef, Benjamin Osher of Nobu, who sets down his first course – musubi rolls with foie gras and pickled shitake mushroom, and salmon poke on house-made taco shells. This is hardly a luxe afair, though. Ben’s fiancée Kristi mans the tiny kitchen just out of the guests’ sight. I’ve made a makeshift bar from an end table, the glassware is all wrong, and my ice supply is housed in a giant Styrofoam box that I pray will survive the night without turning into a giant pool of water. The guests, at least half of which seem to be
air still holds despite all the publicity the club has had. One novelty that sets Stay Hungry apart is its lack of regular staf. Every meal is a collaboration with a diferent chef – professional or (more often) amateur – who develops and serves his or her own unique menu. Think of it as the Saturday Night Live of cooking – ideas that are thrown around early in the week have to be fully fleshed out and presented by the weekend, a stressful but satisfying concept. As a rule, guests have no pre-knowledge of who is going to be cooking for them, and they receive only vague hints about the dinner to help them choose the right bottle for their meal, as most Stay Hungry dinners are BYOB. Tonight is a break from that rule: I am the club’s first-ever bartender, the honour of which I am beginning to somewhat regret as I helplessly watch everyone else tuck into their food, unable to leave my station and join in the evening’s fun. The dinner’s theme is Hawaiian-Japanese, a nod to Kristi’s Honolulu roots and Osher’s Nobu job, so I’m serving rum-based tropical
In a cIty where fIne dInIng Is stIll assocIated wIth ostentatIous luxury, stay hungry dId everythIng delIberately wrong. professional photographers (they need to be told to stop taking pictures and sit down), don’t mind one bit. They are not here for the glamour. In a city where fine dining is still very much associated with ostentatious luxury at exorbitant prices, Stay Hungry, which opened its doors in December 2012, did everything deliberately wrong. It is nothing more, or less, than a second-story walk-up studio apartment with blue-painted walls that are sparsely decorated with family photos, original art and the inevitable deer’s head. If it weren’t for an 18th-century Russian Orthodox Church outside its windows, you wouldn’t even know you were in Moscow, which is perhaps the point: Stay Hungry’s immediate design inspirations seem to reside in Brooklyn, Portland, Oregon and Berlin, given the presence of distressed wood, old milk bottles and the touches of taxidermy. Stay Hungry’s guest list is determined by a kind of email lottery and is
Stay Hungry’s founders (from left), Aliona Ermakova, Anna Bichevskaya and Liya Mur in their walk-up studio apartment.
very closely curated; its demographic (mostly young creative types) initially started out as reflecting the age and social circle of the club’s three female co-founders, Anna Bichevskaya, Aliona Ermakova and Liya Mur. If it was supposed to stay small, however, it has failed: over half a year later, it is one of the most coveted reservations in the city whose most ambitious restaurants, such as Anatoly Komm’s Varvary, stand perennially half-empty. Not a month goes by without Stay Hungry’s co-founders profiled yet again in another Russian glossy (the fact that Bichevskaya, Ermakova and Mur are remarkably easy on the eyes does not hurt). Celebrity guests, including, recently, the American film director Roman Ford Coppola, followed. As I observe tonight’s diners from behind my bar perch, there does not seem to be a single banker present; thankfully, the bohemian
cocktails (one of which I couldn’t help augmenting with Russian kvass). The appetizers are quickly followed by seaweed salad, miso-glazed chicken with the best macaroni salad you will ever try this side of the Pacific Rim, and roast pork with poached egg. The cofounders are working front of the house, as they usually do, and cede the spotlight to the chef, who gets two rounds of furious applause. By 11pm, everyone in the artsy crowd has seemingly exchanged phone numbers, addresses, flirtatious looks, Facebook likes, Instagram handles and start-up ideas. The loneliness of the bartender has never been more deeply felt. To my luck, the dinner is overbooked – 25 people instead of the usual 20 – and Bichevskaya, Ermakova and Mur have nowhere to sit at their own feast; so when they are done serving the masses, they eat their meals standing up at my bar. My repurposed end table ends up being a very exclusive club within a club.
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37 Baku.
the Brooklyn underground
The archaic sound of a 56K dial-up modem is screeching from the speakers. Behind the turntables, Hot Sugar’s Nick Koenig flicks a dial, looping the noise in on itself. The kick drum comes in; actually, it is a field recording of a rat’s heartbeat. The song is called ‘0_0’, its title an Internet pictogram that denotes a bewildered state. The crowd, mostly students from the nearby MetroTech, sits 0_0-ing at the projections that accompany the performance: vintage GIF images gyrating on the outdoor screen, YouTuberipped cartoon clips rhythmically distorted into a pulsating neon mess. ‘It’s cool ’cause it’s nerdy,’ rap-sings the artist Yung Jake. The college kids laugh. It’s not exactly a party, not exactly a show. Welcome to Net Art. Brooklyn’s rave culture has been over for some time: that go-to gutted warehouse is a condo now. No more urban exploring at the empty Domino Sugar Factory by the East River: Julian Schnabel recently used it for a fancy art show. The last ‘underground party’ in Brooklyn was literally underground, more than 15 metres down a manhole to an abandoned subway station, with candle-lit drag parades and bands marching through the tunnels. Then someone exposed the location of the illegal venue in the comments An exhibition view of LaTurbo Avedon’s ‘New Sculpt’ (2013), which included Field with First Visitor (left) and Pop Star.
For the most part, Net art hasN’t quite takeN maNhattaN yet For a LaTurbo Avedon’s work (Sport Desire, left) was shown in August at the Transfer Gallery in Brooklyn.
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section of a popular New York blog, so that’s gone too. Brooklyn isn’t over, though. It’s still better than Manhattan. There is some wilderness left, but much of the nightlife has had to adapt to gentrification, overexposure and the evermilitant new city codes. And so, today, online is where events are conceived, planned
and promoted, absorbing the web aesthetic while doing so. Take Club Shade – which is in fact not a club, but a nomadic party ‘somewhere in Bushwick’, until the actual address is emailed to the RSVP list, a few hours before kick-of. ‘We are the club,’ Shade’s party-makers Ladyfag and Seva Granik joke, then try to describe the ambience of their immaculately planned ‘Tokyo’themed rave in ephemeral terms. ‘I see…
IllustratIon by JImmy turrell. KrIstIn reInheImer. laturbo avedon. meredIth murphy. shayna hawKIns.
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heart & soul: Brooklyn’s alt art scene is not dead: it’s just moved to cooler venues. Marina Galperina digs deep in NY’s hip borough.
A Desperate LaTurbo Avedon Goes to Club Rothko, by the net artist LaTurbo Avedon.
pink ice,’ Ladyfag tells me dreamily. ‘And strobes,’ Seva chimes in. Club Shade is always a DIY pop-up in a raw, completely disused space, with the ‘I’ a huge production. They spent $7,000 on air conditioning alone at a recent Berlin-themed all-nighter. Nearly 2,000 people showed up. Attendance is not enough, though. For the Net Art niche specifically, it seems important that all events are documented and spat up, back into the web. It’s a closed-circuit broadcast, spread via hashtags and emoji-ridden tweets from the performers, promoters, DJs, VJs, Internet media makers, Internet-famous club kids and any conceivable combination thereof. In a way, they’re doing what every subculture is doing – communicating in a visual language that quickly repels anyone who thinks they look weird. By the time the #TOP8 Friends parties began in Brooklyn in 2010, the MySpace reference was deliberately outdated (remember the ‘Top eight friends’ widget, with the invariable ‘Tom’ at the top? No? That’s the point). The star of the last #TOP8 party was Slava, a Moscow-born DJ, graphic artist and programmer who performed at 285 Kent Ave. The notorious Williamsburg venue has fixed itself up a bit these days – the bathroom door is a door now, not a crushed Budweiser box attached with masking tape to a kicked-in hole; there are Christmas lights directing you to a toilet, and an unlucky bouncer gets to enforce a one-person-per-stall policy. #TOP8 seems to have grown up too. And next, Slava is due to head to Moscow to DJ at the swanky Strelka Institute. That’s OK, everyone is moving forward. This year #TOP8 and a few others who take their rejection by ‘the Art World’ with ambivalence and amusement got substantial cred dropped on them when the artists David Wightman and Jacob Ciocci’s ‘Realm Recognize Realm Tour’ grant proposal was approved by Rhizome, one of New York’s most respected not-for-profit organizations and new media art platforms, afliated with the New Museum of contemporary art. Suddenly, what they were doing was ofcially art. The ‘tour’ was a week-long series of pop-up parties in unconventional venues – parking lots, suburban basements – that is, not venues. Again, it’s who that matters, not where. Wightman and Ciocci referred to the tour cast as ‘Super Users’ who ‘use the web synonymously with their daily life’ and have a developed ‘personal self-image/brand’. Apart from #TOP8, that includes
style stretching across all media: an electronic music genre and a label, sampling Caribbean-esque drums and underwater gurgling; instantly recognizable visuals that were inspired by early computer art and crappy screensavers; and a pastelhued onslaught of sea- and net-related fashion à la the artist Lisa Frank (of the eye-poppingly bright unicorn and rainbow images). By the time Lil Internet whined theatrically about it on MTV, it was all over because Rihanna and rapper Azealia Banks had appropriated the imagery. All that mess gave Net Art a hollow, ironic association. Rest in PC, #seapunk.
When every whim of consciousness is instantly gratified with an Internet search, mass regurgitation of media overload takes a certain kind of finesse. It’s an art – sometimes it is art, even – but it’s also a professional skill (it’s no surprise a lot of these professional Internet personalities work in advertising and sponsored-media production). And beyond the throbbing rave backdrop and the commodified Internet culture, there is more Net Art. And it’s been there for a while. The genre is ofcially traced back to 1994, when a group parodying the Avant-Garde emerged under the ‘net.art’ moniker. They were pure, beautiful and contrarian, and now, almost 20 years later, there has spawned too much to truly categorize. There are glitch artists, hackers, culture-jammers and pranksters, social media performers, video-game interventionists, indie video-gamer coders, 8-bit musicians and found-media remix artists, digital sculptors and environment creators. They are international and connected, and their most recent forays into the ofine world have been exciting to watch. For the most part, Net Art hasn’t quite taken Manhattan yet for a very simple
very simple reasoN: it’s hard to sell. the Tumblr-popular camgirl Molly Soda, whose most interesting online manifestation is a 10-hour almostendurance-performance clip of her reading and answering emails and defending her underarm hair with bored, post-feminist conviction while eating cereal; and Lil Internet – an established producer and music-video director who ‘started’ the subgenre seapunk. Or, more accurately, #seapunk: which began as a Twitter joke about dreaming of jackets with barnacles. That joke entered the Internet’s bloodstream and, within weeks, created an entire
A performance by the musician and producer Nick Koenig, of Hot Sugar, featuring GIF projections in the background.
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reason: it’s hard to sell. It has some advocates like Christiane Paul, who curated Net Art for the 2002 Whitney Biennial and teaches at the New School, but the major museums are staying away for now, busy with more crowd-pleasing stuf like 20th-century paintings by René Magritte (MoMA) or Vasily Kandinsky (Guggenheim). Net Art would look equally out of place in the now-stufy Chelsea – with one notable exception: Chelsea’s Eyebeam Art+Technology
under the hashtag #GodMode. It ended in an exhibit of the new work, open to the public. Another was a disturbing, brilliant show on the darkest venues of the Internet from Bunny Rogers and Filip Olszewski. In one room, small blankets displaying the logo of an Internet-based child-modelling agency hung sadly. In the other, 12 speakers played isolated audio tracks of mostly nine-year-olds covering the cheery country pop hit ‘If I Die Young’. It was chilling and challenged the notion of children as Internet objects for adults. It would have never gone over in Manhattan. Since the author James Bridle coined the term ‘New Aesthetic’ in a blog post and then at a SXSW panel in 2012, referring to the manifestation of digital culture in the physical world, it’s been widely overused by everyone in a kind of academic equivalent of Tourette’s. Net Art steps past New Aesthetic’s one-way street of thinking. Today’s digital and tech artists have a dynamic relationship with the Internet itself, not just pulling things from it. They host their code projects on GitHub – an online repository for software development projects – so Above: Aram Bartholl (left) and Tobias Leingruber of FAT Labs, who created the fake Google car (left).
projections and glossy, poster-sized prints stacked high on plinths, available for the public to take home. After the show, the packed reception migrated to the local bar Alaska, where the owner let them project a video art mix-tape and give out more art prints to the regulars who accepted them with glad confusion. In July, Transfer hosted a show for an artist known only by her sexy avatar name, LaTurbo Avedon, who sells her work for bitcoin, the digital currency. There were vinyl prints of her sharpedged sculptures, a 3D-render projection rotating to LaTurbo’s own Britney Spears remix, and laptop terminals where you could interact with her and watch LaTurbo in a virtual studio as she got drunk, danced around and used Facebook photos as sources for her sculptural shapes. There was a brief moment when the chat went ofine, and a worried LaTurbo messaged me on Facebook. I sent her a photo of her reception crowd. It felt totally normal. It went beyond conceptual or performance art. This is just the way we live now. ‘This art enters into the mainstream through a “persona” stream that is an ofshoot of a lot of the work,’ Transfer curatorial director and co-founder Kelani Nichole tells me. ‘The artist is tied to their online identity and their creative act extends into the world in social situations or mundane moments. It’s all an extension of a networked practice. It’s not all art, but it’s all a part of the
Net art’s foray iNto the offliNe world has beeN excitiNg to watch. Eyebeam Art+Technology Center in Chelsea hosted a five-year retrospective of FAT Lab’s work.
Center. Its residency programmes birthed works such as a collection of sculptural portraits that were created with found DNA samples taken from loose hairs in bathrooms and cigarette butts of New York pavements. Eyebeam also hosted a five-year retrospective of FAT Lab, a notorious collective of international hackers and digital artists whose recent actions around New York involved driving around in a fake Google car and – from the FAT Lab artist Aram Bartholl – putting a slit in the outdoor wall of the Museum of the Moving Image in Queens. You stick a blank disc into the ‘DVD Dead Drop’ and 20 minutes later, it spits it out, burned full with digital art. Go to Brooklyn, and the landscape changes. The rent drops, slightly. The lines between hacker, artist and technologist blur and ‘community’ sounds beautiful again. The 319 Scholes gallery hosted some of the best art shows of the year. One was a 48-hour art-hack marathon with 60 artists teaming up to produce new conceptual, programming-based projects about omnipresence, surveillance and digital dictatorship,
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others can improve on them and also upload downloadable 3D-printing files of their artwork. Sometimes, this digital-toIRL (in real life) translation loop gets particularly tight. A collective called The Jogging curates an open-call, crowdsourced, rolling online exhibit entirely on Tumblr. Some of it is videos and photographs of sculptures (a Red Bull cosy made from a French baguette, someone trying to ‘freebase’ an iPhone) but most are digital works of the Duchamp-via-Photoshop variety (an Adidas logo made from pork sausage, ‘You Only Live Once’ in pink zebra print laid over The Death of Marat). They had their physical show in – where else? – Brooklyn, at the Still House. There was a Rothko-esque flat pool of separated, neon-hued liquid, possibly Gatorade. If you flicked it, the colours mixed. That, of course, was filmed and put back onto the Internet as a Vine loop. Someone’s probably remixed it into another Jogging piece by now. The brightest focal point of the Brooklyn Net Art community is the new gallery Transfer, adjacent to a building crammed with artist studios. It focuses specifically on artists with a highly networked, computer-based practice, with many exhibiting their physical work for the first time. So far this year it has shown Rick Silva’s Oregon landscape ‘paintings’ – incredibly detailed, naturebased abstract HD GIFs – both as
practice of Net Art. I’ve seen it in other cities, but it’s well and alive in Brooklyn.’ On my computer screen, LaTurbo dances to her warbling remix of Alice DJ’s ‘Better Of Alone’. It’s hypnotizing. I check my Facebook invite box for the next silly party to show up late to, new art opening to cover, new activist hack-a-thon to join. ‘Žižek, cool. I like your video, LaTurbo,’ I message the artist. She replies, ‘Thank you, <3.’
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An unscientific survey of global cultural memes. Bijou: Talking about your new art foundation. You take art to the underprivileged communities of the world, become a philanthropist and educator in one swoop, and get that profile in Vanity Fair. What’s not to like? Random: Showing of your latest Jef Koons. Get over it, honey.
Brazilian
I 42 Baku.
Adriana Lima is the supermodel from Salvador who has been photographed for Vogue and Marie Claire, is married to a Serbian basketball superstar, and is the face and body of Victoria’s Secret. And she loves Baku. Words by Jonathan heaf Photographs by Russell James t’s summer in New York City, the mercury is in the 80s and Adriana Lima isn’t helping to keep the studio temperature down, not one degree. As the air conditioning unit tremors and shakes, the five-foot-10 supermodel from Brazil throws body shapes for photographer Russell James as part of lingerie mega brand Victoria’s Secret’s ‘Very Sexy’ 2013 Christmas campaign. The campaign name fits. The camera flash pops, James pounces about capturing the scene, while between frames Lima curls one preened limb under another, performing a type of human origami that makes no sense in the flesh but yields traffic-halting results when blown up to the size of a house and beamed onto Times Square. A young male studio assistant walks past and baulks, stupefied, as a stylist peers over a long rail of sparkly, bejewelled thongs to catch a sly glance, giggling surreptitiously. Somewhere someone’s jaw hits the floor at record speed.
Thud! For some, Christmas, it seems, really has come early. Of course, while all about her lose their heads, Lima couldn’t be more Zen. After all, the heady circus of a fashion shoot is just another day at the office for the 32-year-old supermodel – she’s been doing this gig for more than 13 years, having signed with Victoria’s Secret aged only 19. ‘Today my call time was around nine,’ she tells me. ‘You don’t want to work with me if I haven’t slept, trust me. I set my alarm for about seven, then I have an egg-white omelette or a shake.’ She wakes up alone? ‘Oh no, if my husband is there he wakes me up with kisses. And other things!’ Lima’s train of thought leaves me giddy. I stare at the floor as my face goes a deep shade of puce. Does she always have this kind of effect on people she meets for the first time? I suddenly imagine Lima walking calmly down Broadway while cars prang hydrants and office workers fall out of cabs or hang
out of windows entranced. ‘It’s part of my life being famous and being recognized. My picture appears around the world so you get used to people stopping and staring. I’m only still able to work because people recognize me, so I have them to thank, really. I’m always meeting new people and going to new places; I’ve never had any uncomfortable experiences. When I meet people for the first time they are usually nervous. Or in shock!’ She’s not kidding. For such a global star, however, Lima’s ambitions as a young girl growing up in Salvador, Bahia were, in hindsight, ironically micro. ‘I never wanted to be a model, or never thought I could make it this far in this type of work.’ As a teenager she entered and won various school pageants, although it wasn’t until a friend wanted to enter a modelling competition and, for moral support, convinced Lima to send in pictures, that she began seriously considering a life in front of the lens. ‘I didn’t know what it was, and I didn’t consider myself this sexy icon or anything. But I thought maybe it would be fun and I could make a bit of money.’ Aged 15 Lima won Ford’s ‘Supermodel of Brazil’ model search; the video of her winning strut can be found on the Internet and even now the teenager’s obvious charisma can be seen detonating down the catwalk. Lima also does that thing rarely seen in fashion trade shows – she smiles. Aged 18 Lima packed her bags, bid a tearful farewell to her family and headed to New York, and within months signed with Elite Model Management. Shoots for Vogue and Marie Claire, and walking in shows for designers such as Vera Wang, Giorgio Armani and Valentino, quickly followed. Of course, what every model wants – commercially speaking at least – is a big contract with a major brand. In 1999 Lima took a call that would change her life forever. For the $5bn lingerie company Victoria’s Secret, it’s all about creating a thunderous
Adriana Lima, photographed in New York City, 2012.
buzz: a cacophony of noise that will send its finely crafted brand skyward – via print, television, social media or simply a bunch of guys gossiping round the Wi-Ficonnected water cooler – across the globe and into the heart, mind and subconscious of every potential customer. Victoria’s Secret – whatever the parading of overly toned skin might look like from the outside – is a sexy beast driven by some of the most astute marketing the world has ever seen. At the centre of all the flesh and fuss is the now-famous Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show and at the nucleus are its Angels – the women who sign to the lingerie brand for hundreds of thousands of dollars, appearing in their ad campaigns and the show itself. Despite my earlier embarrassment I have a confession: I’ve met Lima once before – I’m sure she’s just too coy to mention it. It was backstage at the Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show in 2012, held at the Lexington Avenue Armory in New York City. Although it was still two hours before show time, part of the pre-show coverage is all the Angels getting catwalk-ready – it’s fascinating how long it takes to slip into a set of sparkly pants. Amid all the preening and primping, the butt-buffing (yes, really) and the blow-drying, I caught Lima trying to have a quiet moment down one end of the hall, as photographers blinded her, and me, with a volley of flashbulbs. Lima appreciated all the noise and the fuss, of course, only mimicking a cantankerous mood to keep the snappers on their toes. A special part of each annual show is the unveiling of the Victoria’s Secret Fantasy Bra, a unique piece of lingerie manufactured and designed using precious stones that adds millions of dollars to its value. Again, it’s marketing nous gone atomic. In 2010 Lima wore a Fantasy Bra made up of 60 carats of diamonds and 82 carats of topazes and sapphires – the bra was valued at $2m, not something you want to put in with your weekly coloured wash. ‘I’ve had the rare chance to wear the Fantasy Bra on two separate occasions,’ she tells me. Was she nervous? ‘No! It’s an honour. It’s nice to be singled out. There’s no room for nerves, no time for mistakes with Victoria’s Secret. It has to be perfect every time and we train tirelessly to ensure it is, every single year.’ Her deep, Brazilian lilt drops another octave. ‘No mistakes!’ Although she calls New York, ‘the centre of my universe’, travel has always been important to Lima. ‘In April this year I had the chance to go to Baku, somewhere I’d never been before,’ she tells me in wonder. ‘It was so interesting and so eye opening to experience a different culture and to be shown insight into the history of such a vibrant city. Baku was very beautiful. I remember one building that really caught my eye, the Heydar Aliyev Centre designed by Zaha Hadid. It was so fluid and so modern; I just never expected to see such a building in Azerbaijan. It got me hooked on Zaha’s work and now I’ve become a complete devotee of her buildings. I love it when a place such as Baku, somewhere totally new to me, can inspire and allow me to learn about a new, vibrant global culture. Isn’t that what a meaningful life is all about?’
Of course, Lima has contentment in her life aside from work, having been married to Serbian basketball player Marko Jaric since 2009. They have two children, Valentina and Sienna. So does the lucky man in her life, the man who gets to act as this woman’s lascivious alarm clock, worry about his wife being the subject of so many male fantasies? Surely he must get a little, well, protective? ‘Oh no, he’s such a wonderful man. He’s everything to me. I adore him.’ Time is called. Reality bites and our moment together is up. It’s back to work for Lima, the model with the perfect business model. She walks back to take her rightful place in front of the camera, while I click my Dictaphone off and follow those long legs, perhaps just a split second too long to be totally innocent. In the distance an office worker, open mouthed, falls out of a window into the din of the city below.
‘I’m always meetIng new people and goIng to new places. when I meet people for the fIrst tIme they are usually nervous. or In shock!’ she’s not kIddIng.
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45 Baku.
Too cool To
frieze
There’s doing Frieze, and there’s doing Frieze. The world’s coolest art fair has a whole über-fashion-style scene of its own. Here’s how to do it with panache.
Clockwise from right: the artist Tracey Emin; the artist Dinos Chapman and his wife Tiphaine de Lussy; visitors reflected in ‘Gemma’, Tomás Saraceno, at Frieze last year; the gallerist Jay Jopling at his dinner in 2012.
1. Activate your concierge
Clockwise from above: Condé Nast International chairman and chief executive Jonathan Newhouse with the journalist Jemima Khan; a visitor interacts with Anish Kapoor’s ‘Untitled’ (2012) last year; ‘Fragile’, Rirkrit Tiravanija, at Frieze 2012; the Tate Modern and Millennium Bridge; the artists Grayson Perry (left) and Jonathan Yeo at Frieze last year.
London is the only city to be in this week, which has become known as Frieze Week, an event that even Parisians concede makes London ‘the top place for contemporary art’, or so says the eminent French art critic Harry Bellet (although he adds that it took a ‘miracle’ to do so). TAG Farnborough Airport will host an influx of private jets, especially from Brazil, Central Asia, Russia and the US. Take the helicopter to Battersea (12 minutes) and have your driver meet you there. Unless you have a home in the capital, the chances are you’ll stay at Claridge’s (where Phillips the auctioneers will be showcasing highlights of this week’s contemporary sale) or the Connaught – the art collector’s hotels of choice. Indeed the received wisdom among Mayfair galleries is that unless you’re within 10 minutes of either, you’re nowhere. Why else did Marlborough Contemporary – host of one of the most talked-about Frieze parties in 2012 – choose Albemarle Street for its first venture into 21st-century art; or Blain Southern set up shop anew on Hanover Square during Frieze last year? Among Frieze’s official hotels of choice is the Hyatt Regency London – The Churchill, on Portman Square. And why not? It’s well placed for the fair (Frieze London is seven minutes by taxi; Frieze Masters is nine). It has a creditable art collection; the brand is owned by the Pritzker family of collectors and art philanthropists. Plus, the hotel partners with Saatchi Online, which provides an exhibition for its Republic of Fritz Hansen-furnished Saatchi Suite. In gearing up for the week, there will be a host of events for VIPs and above (that’s you). There’s Monday’s evening reception at Tate Modern, and a private view of books from the gallerist and book designer John Cheim, at the ICA. This is also when the big gallery dinners and parties kick off at venues throughout Mayfair – it’s diary-clash hell. On Tuesday there’s a private tour of Frieze Sculpture Park, located in the English Garden just minutes from the main tent. Then, of course, there’s the official Frieze pre-preview, which last year was held at the Hospital Club, as well as more big-name bashes (Gagosian, White Cube) and a V-VIP event from headline sponsors, Deutsche Bank.
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Clockwise, from below right: the collectors Eli and Edythe Broad; the gallerist Jay Jopling (left) and designer Haider Ackermann; the philanthropist Dasha Zhukova; visitors last year.
2. preview day wednesday, 7am Officially today is the VIP Preview, the see-and-be-seen day of Frieze Week. The dress code, in so far as it exists, is best described as eccentric. Witness the red jumper, checked cigarette pants and pointy white stilettos that Dasha Zhukova donned last year. Remember that they ask you – even you! – to check all but small handbags, and that you’ll be spending a lot of time on your feet. Frieze 2012’s favoured footwear was Louboutin spikestudded slippers; this year the smart money’s on Christopher Kane’s featherembellished glossy Chelsea boots. 11am This is the time on your superexclusive invitation card that indicates admission to what’s essentially the prepreview, and that, as a collector, you’re held in the highest esteem: a member of the peer group that embraces François Pinault, Eli and Edythe Broad, Don and Mera Rubell, Bernardo Paz, and perhaps the odd Hollywood A-lister. This golden two-hour period is when the big deals are done. That said, much about Frieze 2013 will seem smaller than in previous years. ‘We have worked with our architects to refine the overall experience,’ says Matthew Slotover, Frieze co-founder and co-director, with Amanda Sharp. ‘We’ve got some great galleries in the fair: Blum & Poe from Los Angeles, Max Hetzler from Berlin and Marian Goodman from New York. Frieze Masters [has] an amazing list of galleries that will bring works of an assuredly high quality.’ This year it will be even more exclusive. The guest list has been reduced, as have the number of public tickets. Fewer galleries – about 150 – from as far afield as Brazil, South Africa and Japan have made the ever-more exacting cut. But there will still be a lot to see. Don’t forget the further 26 exhibitors at Focus, which showcases
galleries less than a decade old; 20 at Frame, which features solo shows staged by other ‘young’ galleries; and 23 solo shows of work made in the last century at Spotlight. Plus the 120 or so exhibitors at Frieze Masters, launched last year to showcase art made before 2000. It’s readily accessible to VIP cardholders thanks to the fair’s fleet of branded BMW 7 Series cars. Though, unlike the limos at this year’s Frieze New York, these ones won’t contain specially commissioned sound installations to entertain you. 1pm With so much to scrutinize, you might as well eat on-site, to which end chef Margot Henderson (wife of Fergus) and co-chef-patronne of the hipster art-world hangout Rochelle Canteen in Shoreditch will be on hand to cater for the V-VIPs. 2pm This is when they let the non-exhibiting dealers, curators, museum directors and auctioneers in for a private view; they’re usually identified by their business-like apparel. Respite can be found in the exclusive Deutsche Bank Lounge, where a project by the artist Mathilde ter Heijne, Woman to Go, will feature portraits in postcard form of pioneering women from history, which VIPs may help themselves to. The twist is that the biographies on each card don’t match the faces on the front, an indictment of the extent to which so many of these women and their achievements have been overlooked or forgotten.
3. official opening thursday, 9:30am Breakfast
becomes quite the social occasion during Frieze Week. Last year, for instance, Other Criteria served up a spread of strawberries and assorted viennoiseries in the presence of Damien Hirst, to celebrate his work. Other dealers will be following suit this year. 11am Frieze Art Fair is only one of a host of events in Frieze Week, which spans the city. Take, for example, PAD London Art + Design (till 20 October), which is also held in a tent (admittedly not as splendid as those that architects Carmody Groarke and Annabelle Selldorf have designed for, respectively, Frieze and Frieze Masters), this time in Berkeley Square. It’s arguably London’s leading fair for 20th-century art, design and eclectic decorative arts, 4pm Bonhams hosts the first
of the week’s contemporary art auctions at its New Bond Street headquarters (with Phillips’ evening sale later tonight at 7pm, at its Westminster HQ.) 6pm Back at Frieze, the smaller collectors and art-world mavens are now admitted, plus the press. This is your signal to leave; it’s the time many dealers take down their prime exhibits. 7pm The Christie’s/Vanity Fair party is traditionally the hottest ticket tonight, an event only rivalled by Jay Jopling’s dinner – held last year at Harry’s Bar, with a guest list that ran from hip hotelier André Balazs to hedge-fund whizzes Arpad Busson and Ian Wace, by way of the designers Agnès B and Bella Freud – and this year’s Alexander McQueen-hosted one for Frieze itself (McQueen is a new sponsor of the fair for 2013). But don’t overlook the more low-key events. Who knew the party for the Iranian artist Reza Aramesh at One Marylebone would be the most talked-about soirée in 2011? 10:45PM If the night still feels young and you can’t face the annual Frieze-related shindig at the Groucho Club, the Coburg Bar at the Connaught is the place for a last flute of vintage Krug. If that revives you, then someone will surely be throwing an after-party at 2&8, the nightclub in the basement of Morton’s, the private members’ club on Berkeley Square. (Frieze VIPs have membership for the duration of the fair.)
drawing 60 galleries from across Europe and the US. Look out for the stand belonging to David Ghezelbash, a French expert, formerly of the Louvre, who specializes in near-Eastern antiquities (think of Picasso and Brâncusi, and you’ll get a sense of their aesthetic, though the prices are less inflated compared to modern art). 2pm Phillips hosts its contemporary art day sale, the highlights of which have been shown at its gallery in Claridge’s. 3pm You might want to be back at Frieze Masters for the first in its annual programme of Frieze Masters Talks (daily at 3pm), where those in conversation will include Beatriz Milhazes with Martin Roth, director of the V&A; and Catherine Opie with Michael Govan, director of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. 5pm Christie’s and the Saatchi Gallery auction large-scale installations and sculptures from
50 artists – among them Tracey Emin, Jake and Dinos Chapman and Conrad Shawcross. The sale, entitled ‘Thinking Big’, has no estimates or reserve prices, which should make for exciting bidding. (The preview is being held at The Sorting Office, a still palpably industrial space on New Oxford Street.) 6pm This evening is also Frieze’s official VIP West End Night, when galleries such as Alan Cristea, Anthony Reynolds, Carl Kostyál and Johann König host special events. 9pm Within five minutes by cab is 45 Park Lane, the latest addition to the Dorchester Group of hotels, in which a rib-eye of prime Australian Wagyu at Wolfgang Puck’s Cut, in a room hung with Damien Hirst paintings, may be just the ticket. Hotel guests will have had a chance to meet Jane McAdam Freud, daughter of Lucian Freud, over breakfast, followed by a private tour of her studio.
the received wisdom is that unless you stay within 10 minutes of claridge’s or the connaught, you’re nowhere.
Clockwise from left: Frieze’s Amanda Sharp and Matthew Slotover; ‘Door’ (2012), Gavin Turk; the entrepreneur Evgeny Lebedev; Harry’s Bar; a giant sausage, part of food art at Frieze 2012; the Hospital Club held a private event last year.
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Friday, 9am So much to see, so little time. With hundreds of exhibitions – in commercial galleries and public museums – opening around London to coincide with Frieze, the choice can seem overwhelming. As far as the smaller independent galleries are concerned, Twitter is the best way to keep up with the buzz. But don’t overlook the established public galleries. 10am The Sou Fujimoto Pavilion at the Serpentine Gallery in Kensington Gardens is absolutely worth the detour, along with its just-opened Sackler Gallery, an ingenious reinvention of a former gunpowder store wrought by Zaha Hadid, the architect of the Heydar Aliyev Centre in Baku. (The opening show is the first UK exhibition by the up-andcoming Argentinian artist Adrián Villar Rojas.) 11am You can walk from the park to the Victoria and Albert Museum to catch Elmgreen & Dragset’s immense multi-room installation, Tomorrow, which has transformed the former textile galleries into the statelyhome apartment of an imagined aristocratic architect – a stage set, if you will – designed to conjure an intriguing, even allegorical, narrative in the minds of visitors. 12:30pm Hail a cab east to Tate Modern, Bankside, for the Paul Klee and Mira Schendel retrospectives, after which you’ll be well placed for a late lunch at Oblix, essentially a New York-style grill that’s open from 10am to midnight and the
Breakfast Becomes quite the social occasion during frieze Week. last year other criteria served up an assortment of viennoiseries in the presence of damien hirst and his Work. latest restaurant opening from Rainer Becker (of Zuma and Roka fame) on the 32nd floor of The Shard. All the window tables have terrific city views, but the most coveted is arguably 206 in the east-facing corner of the bar (which serves approximately the same menu as the restaurant, though without the grills). From this prime spot you can look down at Tower Bridge, the whole City laid at your feet. Afterwards you might want to rest up before the evening. 5pm If you have the energy, it might be worth taking a taxi across town to South Kensington for Multiplied, the annual fair of contemporary ‘editions’ from 40 international galleries hosted by Christie’s, which is now in its fourth instalment. Certainly the usually sedate saleroom will be reconfigured – just for the duration of Frieze Week – as you’ve never seen it. As its director Murray Macaulay says, this is a fair that’s ‘very broad in its media, so it’s looking at print and photography, artist books and three-dimensional multiples. So whether it is a woodcut by William Kentridge, an etching by Carlos Amorales or a digital print by Eddie Peake, there will be something for you.’ Remember, the future is digital! 7pm Tonight is the biggest sale of the week: Christie’s post-war and contemporary evening auction. At last year’s equivalent, buyers from 18 countries and four continents spent £23.2m, establishing four artist records. The day after it had sold a further £8m-worth of works from the same period. As Francis Outred, international director and head of post-war and contemporary art, Christie’s Europe, said at the time: ‘The first three lots of the evening auction were by exciting young artists completely fresh to the forum and they substantially outgrew their estimates as well as their retail prices, marking a real statement for Frieze Week’ –
From top: the collectors Don and Mera Rubell; the gallerist Maureen Paley (left) and the collector Anita Zabludowicz; the artist Marc Quinn; ‘Murder in Three Acts’ (2012), Asli Çavusoglu; the Serpentine Pavilion.
an indicator that collectors in London for Frieze are definitely in a mood to buy. 10pm The reinvigorated Arts Club is convenient for King Street, so a late supper – it’s open till 3am – might fit the bill nicely (otherwise two other fixtures on the London dining scene, Le Caprice and the Wolseley, are nearby). After which you’ll be ready to fall into bed exhausted and dream of all the art you’ve acquired. Alternatively, the party ‘with performances’ to head for will be the Zabludowicz Collection’s bash for the artist Andy Holden in its gallery space, a former Methodist Church in Chalk Farm. After that it’s chocks away for LA. After all, who wants to be in London in October?
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CORBIS. GETTY. REX.
4. call the pilot
Pearl Lam is pure drama. The Shanghai-born socialite and gallerist’s fiery personality and flamboyant style ensure she is one of the most colourful characters of the global art scene. We get an exclusive audience with her at her lavish London penthouse.
52 Baku.
Words by Mary Fellowes Illustration by aTMa
enquired with a member of staff as to her whereabouts. The response: ‘Ms Lam, sir? Oh no, she isn’t here. She is in Europe.’ I ring the doorbell and prepare myself for a no-show (after all, she is due to host a dinner party this evening.) But it seems I’m in luck. A butler opens the door and ushers me into Lam’s extraordinary parallel universe. If the Hollywood stage and film decorator Tony Duquette reimagined a Liberace-esque Aladdin’s cave, via a modern Parisian bordello, it might come close to evoking Lam’s camped-up pad. Oversized Murano glass vases converse with a precarious-looking Zaha Hadid chaise lounge, surveyed by a feather chandelier by XYZ Design (the tablecloth and chairs are also feathered) and a giant abstract wall sculpture depicting intimate female anatomy by Cathy de Monchaux. To add to the drama, Lam – sporting a glossy, purple-tinted bob and dressed in
s I approach Pearl Lam’s penthouse on London’s Savile Row, an urban myth about the Chinese gallerist springs to mind. The story goes that a missive was sent to China’s great and good to attend a dinner at Lam’s Shanghai home, in honour of a visiting art advisor. After an hour’s mingling, there was no sign of her. The guest of honour
a fuchsia cocktail gown – is engaged in a game of cat and mouse with the white-linen suited staff, who, to her (hopefully) mock irritation, have kidnapped her new mobile phone (which she has managed to get her hands on, days before they hit the stores). It is impossible to guess Lam’s age. Her youthful demeanour suggests late thirties,
but her business success and vast experience of Chinese art imply someone in their late forties or older. In real life she is 44. She rushes past me, shrieking ‘open champagne!’ to anyone listening. But Lam herself only drinks Diet Coke (which perhaps explains her sky-high energy levels). Lam’s colourful career spans two decades and today her empire includes two galleries in Shanghai and one in Hong Kong, covering both art and design (Lam’s philosophy is not to segregate the two). This November will see her open a Singapore flagship. She has scooped numerous awards and was featured in the 2013 Forbes Asia 50 Businesswomen In The Mix, and in last year’s Art+Auction Power 100, a list of the most influential figures in the art world. Lam typically represents 30 to 40 artists, both Chinese and Western, at any one time. Her current roster includes the provocative performance artist and painter, Zhang Huan, and abstract ink-brush painter Lan Zhenghui. International names include the artists Jim Lambie, Jason Martin and Michael Wilkinson, plus established and emerging designers including Maarten Baas, André Dubreuil, Mattia Bonetti and Studio Makkink & Bey. Alongside all of this, Lam has an artist-in-residence scheme at a gallery space in a former factory in Shanghai, where Western and Asian artists and designers are invited to explore various cultural differences and ‘push the boundaries of Chinese art and craft’. And yet growing up in Hong Kong, Lam wasn’t surrounded
‘I was forced to wrIte callIgraphy when I was four. I would jump up and down lIke a monkey and was never quIet. my father thought I should learn to focus by wrItIng passages of callIgraphy, over and over.’ by art. Neither her father, who made his name in property, nor her mother, were interested in art or exploring cultural history. Lam says wistfully: ‘I never went to museums. My parents are not museum people.’ So how did she become an expert? ‘In the 1990s, I met many Chinese artists and I learned about the history of Chinese art, not by reading but by hearing, because my Chinese was not good,’ she says. ‘I didn’t even know Confucius until one
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of the artists said to me: “My five-year-old boy can recite the whole book of Confucius.” Can you imagine? [In the West] children talk about music and street culture, but in China they talk about ancient philosophy.’ Lam is philosophical about Chinese contemporary art’s relatively recent entrance on the world stage. ‘[It] had little presence internationally 20 years ago. In the past two decades this has changed dramatically and Chinese artists are receiving the attention they deserve, both in terms of the art market and an increasing presence in public museum spaces across the world.’ Despite Lam’s upbringing, the art world beckoned from a young age. After going abroad to study – first to the US and then London – her parents ordered her to return home. She did, on the condition that they let her open her own gallery. Her parents agreed, then had a change of heart, but that didn’t stop Lam from staging an exhibition in 1993, at the French Consulate in Hong
PEARL LAM GALLERIES/JUSTIN JIN. STEFAN ZENZMAIER COURTESY GALERIE RUZICSKA, SALZBURG AND SPRÜTH MAGERS BERLIN LONDON. RYAN PYLE/CORBIS.
Kong. The show – a mix of East and West, furniture and decorative art, including embroidered sofas by the British designer Tom Dixon – kick-started Lam’s career. It wasn’t until 10 years later that things really took off. Lam was abroad when the Sars virus broke out in Asia. Forbidden from returning to Hong Kong, she oscillated between Paris, London and New York, taking in all she saw in the fashion, design and art worlds. When she returned to Hong Kong, she says she stood up to her parents, once again announcing that she wanted to launch a gallery. This time it would happen. The catalyst came when Lam was invited to curate an exhibition at the Shanghai Urban Planning Exhibition Centre, in 2004, as part of the French Culture Year in China. ‘Awakening: La France Mandarine’ explored the influence of France on Chinese art. The show inspired Lam’s choice of location for her first gallery, Shanghai: ‘Because it is the city in China most influenced by France.’ In 2005, Contrasts Galleries (since renamed Pearl Lam Galleries) was born. ‘I set up the gallery to show real Chinese art: art that is 10 times more interesting [than more familiar works],’ Lam tells me. ‘I wanted to show things that no one was interested in.’ The Shanghai flagship was followed by a second gallery in the city, and the space was aimed at promoting Chinese art and culture, as well as Chinese collectors. Lam’s galleries have since continued to communicate the history and evolution of contemporary Chinese art, as well as presenting overseas artists in China. This autumn the Hong Kong gallery will show ‘Light Stream’, conceptual American artist Jenny Holzer’s latest riff on LED lights, while the Shanghai flagship will exhibit ‘The Living Road,’ the first solo show in China by Golnaz Fathi, one of Iran’s most talked-about female artists. In November, the Hong Kong space will play host to ‘Dreaming Rich’, by the BritishNigerian artist Yinka Shonibare, another first solo exhibition in the country. Notably, Lam was among the first to champion original Chinese abstract art, at a time when the only news of the nation’s contemporary art that reached the West was China’s own clichéd answer to Pop Art. ‘The Western perception is that [Chinese art] is derivative,’ says Lam. ‘You see a Mao Zedong face, you think Cultural Revolution. I always said the most boring so-called contemporary Chinese art is when you have a Western visual language and you put in local content – that’s what happened with Asian art.’
Lam believes Chinese abstract art existed 5,000 years ago, in the form of calligraphy: ‘A lot of Western critics would tell us that contemporary Chinese abstract art derives from [Western] abstract art, but the roots of it are in the ancient ink-brush culture of the Chinese literati.’ There was another earlier, subconscious influence on Lam: ‘I was forced to write calligraphy when I was four. I would jump up and down like a monkey and was never quiet. My father thought I should learn to focus by writing passages of calligraphy, over and over.’
If the West’s move into abstract art was a response to, or evolution from, the figurative, in China it was, according to Lam, a natural extension of the nation’s spirituality. ‘Our abstract [art] is rooted in Chinese philosophies – our culture of Daoism, Buddhism and Confucianism; we believe nothing is absolute. The Daoists would say that form is formless. The Buddhists asked: “What is true? What is false?” Everything is subject to space and perception. Now, because people are studying Eastern spirituality, all of a sudden they appreciate what we have been doing all this time. Instead of studying art history, we study spirituality.’ Lam seems to sense our time is almost up. She crosses her legs agitatedly, though the violet helmet hairdo doesn’t flinch. She continues, with that same ironic impatience: ‘Today, spirituality is so strong – it has to be. The modern world is based on consumerist culture. We need to balance it with spirituality. Some artists tell me they make art as therapy, as a way of cleansing themselves of problems.’ A nagging doorbell interrupts her flow and with that, Lam, the spiritual whirlwind, is gone.
Previous page, from left: Lam’s Shanghai apartment; the gallerist. Clockwise from below: ‘Lions After Slumber’ series (2013), Michael Wilkinson; ‘I Remember (Square Dance)’ (2009), Jim Lambie; ‘Torso’ (2007), Jenny Holzer; Jason Martin’s 2013 ‘Sacred Masters, Sacred Monsters’ solo exhibition at Pearl Lam Galleries, Hong Kong; ‘Untitled’ (2009), Jim Lambie.
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55 Baku.
Gavin Turk was one of the original Young British Artists. Now he’s creating public sculptures and turning to social projects. Opinionated as ever, he grants Baku an exclusive interview. Words by Francesca Gavin Portrait by Ben Hopper
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anging above the toilet in Gavin Turk’s studio is a small Lucio Fontana slashed canvas. In the hallway, there’s a little Van Gogh portrait and an Andy Warhol. Yet none of these pieces are what they seem. They are all works by Turk that play on the ideas of fame, perception and art history. Turk came to public attention in the early 1990s as one of the central Young British Artists or YBAs – the young guns changing the art world, one punk prank and confrontational artwork at a time. During his 20-year career, Turk has been one of
the most consistently productive and provocative names in British art. His studio is on the edge of East London, in the no-man’s land overlooking the Olympic Park in a black ex-garage with a red communist neon star above the door. Surrounded by dusty warehouses and quick-build high-rise flats, it could not be in a more desolate location. The building was formerly a place where people printed fake money and fixed knock-off cars. It’s a strangely fitting home for Turk – echoing the ideas of recycling, reinvention and fakery that are at the heart of his work. In person, Turk is less confrontational and less chameleon-like than his work might suggest. Today he is wearing jeans and a white T-shirt featuring a black outline of an egg (a recurring motif in his work); he has a greying beard, a spark in his eye and a quick, sarcastic British sense of humour. Despite his success, Turk still has a hands-on relationship with art – even today, he’s creating a work on paper while being interviewed, surrounded by the mess of his studio. In the past few years he has produced a number of public sculptures – notably Nail (2011), a comic giant nail that sits outside the Jean Nouvel-designed One New Change shopping centre near St Paul’s in London. This year he unveiled a bronze door entitled Ajar in the public gardens of a new housing development in Highbury, north London. ‘That was a real cast of the real door of the philanthropic project that became Action for Children. It was the door of the orphan home that was on that site before it was developed. A memory of the history of the space.’ Turk continues: ‘The difficult thing about working in public space – it’s open all the time. Quite often it doesn’t get looked at, because people think they can always see it another time. That it’s involuntarily there, in their face. There’s a strange point where making public sculptures is getting involved in an invisible activity. There’s something turned on its head about it.’ There is a generosity to Turk’s approach to art that separates him from many other YBAs. He is media savvy but comes across as open and natural. He is serious about art but he displays an impishness rather than the arrogance of some of his contemporaries. Turk is interested in a more collaborative vein of art. ‘It’s interesting the way someone like Jeremy Deller has become an important figure in the art world. People like Simon Starling; artists who are coming out of the gallery and working in a much more interactive way. It’s not the same sort of formal relationship between object and audience. I find it a rich seam for thinking.’ Turk shows a resistance to the mechanisms of the art world – even while he thrives within it: ‘I think it’s held to ransom by its industry – by its galleries, collectors and auction houses. There’s quite a stranglehold on the output. I’m interested in it – but it can irk me.’ His work is defined by its smart balance of humour, pop accessibility and art
Opposite page, from top: ‘Eve’s Apple’ (2006), painted bronze; ‘Turk Love Pink’ (2009). Below: the artist and ‘GT Car Sticker’ (2008).
a cup of
with gavin turk
The guises of Gavin Turk, clockwise from above: ‘Large Red Fright Wig’ (2011); ‘Another Bum’ (1999); ‘Rock Gunslinger Yellow and Green’ (2012); ‘Black on Tan Che’ (2005); ‘Punk Gunslinger Yellow and Orange’ (2012). Opposite top: ‘Cave (edition)’ (1995).
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history. Originally as a direct reference to Jasper Johns’ painted bronze beer cans from 1960, Turk began to cast objects and paint them to resemble reality. ‘I like the idea that a bronze cast was, as much as anything, evidence of something having at one point existed.’ A cast liquorice pipe, with a nod to the Surrealist artist René Magritte’s famous painting, was followed by one of his most successful works – a filled black bin bag. ‘I had to question myself as to why the bronze sculpture was preferential to just putting a bag there. It seemed that by casting it in bronze, you somehow arrested time. The creases, folds, reflections, shadows – all became fixed. They became precious.’
Rubbish is a central motif in Turk’s art – in paintings, prints, sculptures. The bronze pieces are a modern twist on the ready-made – the Duchampian idea that an everyday object could be an artwork. The familiarity of his objects is unnerving. Unless you touched his bin bags, it was impossible to tell if they were real. ‘Suddenly you have to question everything,’ he says. ‘Suddenly it makes everything around you possibly not what you thought it was.’ Turk’s trompe l’oeil works have a sense of the abject – things you want hidden and thrown away, not necessarily shoved back into your life. As Turk notes, ‘[It comes] back to this idea of what’s real or not real, or what’s desirable or
‘There’s This consTanT aTTempT To Try and make arTisTs like pop sTars or celebriTies, buT They don’T fiT The mould.’ not desirable. What do we keep and what do we throw away? How do we edit? I kept finding myself drawn to things that people were throwing away, that the moment that something was thrown away was the moment that the value had left it.’ Turk’s desire to goad assumptions emerged early, when Charles Saatchi opened the seminal ‘Sensation’ exhibition in 1997 at the Royal Academy – the show that transformed the general public’s interest in modern art overnight. Saatchi exhibited some of Turk’s best-known works in the show, and as a tongue-incheek response to how the artists were
being left out of the show’s opening private view, Turk smuggled himself into the RA dressed as a bum. ‘I had soiled, filthy clothes on. I stank of urine. I had a tin full of cigarettes that I’d picked up off the streets and re-rolled into rollies. It was a grim scene. I didn’t think what I was doing was art. Everyone was dressing up so [I thought] I’d just dress up as well.’ The well-heeled viewers at the glamorous opening didn’t know where to look. A year later he developed the idea of this liminal character who stood outside socialized society. ‘I started thinking this character – or this element within human nature or within a social structure – this character somehow created the frame, he started to delineate what was acceptable.’ Turk made a series of sculptures of himself as tramp figures. He followed this with a painted bronze sculpture of a curled-up figure in a dirty sleeping bag called Nomad (2003), and an empty sleeping bag piece entitled Habitat (2004). His aim was to touch on the audience’s desire not to look at a sleeping bag in the street, plus the Hello! magazine-style fascination to peak into people’s private spaces. Provocation is at the heart of Turk’s work. ‘I think that it’s probably harder to be provocative now because people’s barriers are a bit more expanded. This was before computers entered into everyone’s house, and there were still
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underground threads of knowledge and information. I do think that art should be provocative. It doesn’t have to be crude. It can happen on a sophisticated level, but I do think it does have to enter into people’s subconscious or their preconceptions.’ Born in Guildford in 1967, Turk completed a degree at the Chelsea School of Art before doing an MA in sculpture at the Royal College of Art in 1989. From the minute he completed his degree show in 1991 he was serious art news. It was here that Turk famously hung a blue plaque - a historical marker that is found in public spaces in the UK, to commemorate famous individuals and where they worked or lived – in an empty studio reading: ‘Borough of Kensington / Gavin Turk / Sculptor / worked here / 1989-1991’. The RCA failed him and refused to give him his degree – but it got him the attention of Charles Saatchi and a young Jay Jopling, then starting the White Cube gallery. Frieze Magazine, which launched the same year, printed his rejection letter as a point of public debate. Turk had arrived.
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Turk isn’t angry at being pigeonholed with his provocative contemporaries. ‘I think that the idea of the YBA movement was a strong and important one for giving artists [something] larger than a personal identity. I probably went in and out of it. I think what it did was allow you to talk about a certain kind of young, socially conscious art that was being produced at the beginning of the 1990s in the UK. It was a rough sort of carryall.’ In recent years Turk’s focus has turned to social art projects, including the Art Car Boot Fair, which runs annually in London. Here artists set up stalls, selling cheap art directly to their audience. Parties to coincide with Turk’s work are even part of his art-making process. For his series of sculptural busts, En Face (2010), he held ‘The Bust Party’, inviting people to come and deface and manipulate clay busts of Turk at his studio. The artist’s emphasis on free art, performative work and social projects led This page, from top: ‘Trash’ (2007); ‘HMS Odyssey’ (2011); ‘Pablo’s Melon’ (2000); ‘Flat Tyre’ (2013), all painted bronze. Opposite, from top; ‘Erutangis’ (2009), mirrored acrylic; ‘Yellow Sneer’ (2011), acrylic on canvas.
Gavin Turk / Live STock MarkeT.
In the early 1990s, Turk continued with attention-grabbing works. He made waxworks of himself in the style of art-historical representations of famous characters: Che Guevara, Marat, Elvis. The most memorable was 1993’s Pop (later featured in Saatchi’s ‘Sensation’ show), a waxwork sculpture of Turk dressed as Sid Vicious, performing Frank Sinatra’s ‘My Way’, in the cowboy pose of Andy Warhol’s Elvis. The waxworks said everything about Pop Art, pop culture, pop music and fame. Turk’s play on celebrity couldn’t have been more timely, with British newspapers striving to make his generation tabloid rock stars. ‘[I’m] obsessed with the way art often becomes about storytelling or about media representations,’ says Turk. ‘There’s this constant attempt to try and make artists like pop stars or film stars or celebrities, but in a way they don’t really fit the mould. Generally they’re not so media friendly. They use their art to communicate.’
to his split with Jopling’s White Cube. As Turk explains: ‘I didn’t really want to be commercial and I was too slow to get on and make product. I think the gallery was not flexible enough to represent me in all the different ways that I was investigating the object. I was looking at art making as a performance or working with children.’ Turk had two children by the age of 28 with his partner Deborah Curtis – the first only two years out of his MA. Trying to balance that and still be part of the art world became important to him. ‘The art world was a different place. Private views were smoky affairs. There was a lot of beer. It was grown up. There really weren’t any children around. Deborah and I felt, socially, that people were missing out on the benefits of learning from children, as much as children learning from adults.’ The couple travelled to France, Germany and Holland looking at children’s museums and cultural spaces to engage youngsters. They set up a crèche in their house for friends in East London, sharing the responsibility between parents. Curtis developed the idea of a children’s museum before their third child was born, and in 2005 the project was reincarnated as the House of Fairy Tales. ‘[It] was developed as a slightly Surrealist, quirky place where there’s a sort of adult-child interface and there’s excesses and there’s the idea of a place where creative play can be experienced on a profound level.’ The couple put on events at
‘I do thInk art should be provocatIve. It doesn’t have to be crude. It can happen on a very sophIstIcated level.’ festivals such as Port Eliot and Glastonbury, and also at the Tate Modern and Whitechapel Gallery. They are currently working to establish an art circus in London’s East End. Turk has a constant energy to create and push his mediums. A show of his neon work will open at the Bowes Museum in Durham, UK, in January, and after being interviewed by Baku Turk raced to Iceland for a group show. ‘Different mediums are like different languages. If I use different mediums I can talk in different dialects. I’m able to use syntax that otherwise I wouldn’t. It’s like each different material and medium has its own culture,’ he says. ‘You make another piece of work to correct problems you made before, things you didn’t say before. It’s almost like, as you make a piece of work you become a bit enlightened and realize other works you haven’t made. Art is a conversation.’ Turk’s art brings that conversation about recycling, reimagining and layering to the fore – with his innate mischievousness. ‘I want to think about the idea of originality and signature and ownership and censorship. Your audience is able to register or recognize the fact that this is obviously not original. It’s a fake. That this is somehow an artwork in jeopardy.’
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Gavin Turk’s ‘The House of Fairy Tales’ show is at Baku Cellar 164, London, until January. 61 Baku.
Monochrome chic meets mountain mystery as our urbane heroine travels to the ancient city of Gabala in the north of Azerbaijan. Photographs by jessica backhaus Styling by mary fellowes
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previous page. Jacket by Donna Karan. Top by phoebe english archive. opposite. T-shirt by MarKus lupfer. Dress and jumper (around waist) by acne. Lace body by eMilio cavallini. above. Coat by Moschino. Top by helMut lang. Dress by toDD lynn. Lace body by eMilio cavallini. Boots by MM6 by Maison Martin Margiela.
Jacket by Donna Karan. Dress by Camilla anD marC. Dress (worn underneath) by ToDD lynn. Shoes by aTTilio GiusTi leombruni.
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OppOsite. Top by phOebe english Archive. Dress by tOdd lynn. Jumper (around neck) by lâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;Agence. AbOve. Jacket and top by helmut lAng. Dress (worn underneath) by tOdd lynn.
Blazer by CAmILLA ANd mARC. Shirt by mARkUS LUpfER. Lace body by EmILIO CAVALLINI. Mini skirt by ANTONIO BERARdI.
ABOVE. Shirt by PhOEBE English. Dress by TOdd lynn. OPPOsiTE. Tank top by MissOni. Lace body by EMiliO CAVAllini. Skirt by PhOEBE English ArChiVE. Jumper (around neck) by ACnE. Blazer by CAMillA And MArC.
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OppOsite. Dress by AntOniO BerArdi. Lace body by emiliO CAvAllini. Boots by mm6 By mAisOn mArtin mArgielA. Jacket by Helmut lAng. ABOve. Dress by dKny. Lace body by emiliO CAvAllini. Jumper (around neck) by ACne.
Dress by Eudon Choi. Shirt by Markus LupfEr. Leggings by EMiLio CavaLLini. Shoes by attiLio Giusti LEoMbruni.
Model Liah CeCCheLLero at ModeLs 1/eLite Paris. Fashion assistant FranCesCa Prudente. Hair Jose QuiJano using toni&Guy. Make-up niCky Weir using MaC CosMetiCs.
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opposite. Gilet by emilio de la moreno. Long-sleeved dress by sonia rykiel. Dress by dkny. Mini skirt (worn as belt) by antonio Berardi. Jumper (around waist) by acne. Fishnet body by emilio cavallini. Boots by maison martin margiela. aBove. T-shirt by acne. Dress by todd lynn. Lace body by emilio cavallini. Mini skirt (worn as belt) by antonio Berardi.
He was the golden boy of UK garage pop, who shot to fame a decade ago. Now Craig David is back, singing, rapping and DJ-ing his way around the world. We catch up with him backstage to talk hip-hop, pumping iron, Baku and partying at home in Miami. Words by John Lewis Illustration by ChARLes wiLLiAMs here’s a weird buzz of excitement at The O2, the vast entertainment complex in London. We’re here to see Craig David’s first UK tour in four years. Just over two-thirds of the audience are women. Nearly all are between the ages of 25 and 35, and most will admit they fell in love with the muscle-clad R&B crooner in their formative years. They have dragged their boyfriends with them – these are strong-but-silent tattooed types, but the kind who’ll probably admit to having a copy of David’s second album on CD in their car. Before the gig there’s a feeling that going to see David is a faintly ironic joke. For some people, he was the UK’s budget-price R Kelly, a slightly naff relic of the early Noughties, a man whose career took a battering from a certain comedian’s relentless parodies. But, from the second David comes on stage and belts out the first in a string of global hits, any pretence at irony drops. The crowd is on its feet, screaming along with every lyric. David is still quite the performer. Dressed in a crisp white shirt, white jeans and a black tie, he croons, he hollers, he raps in a galloping double-time; he even does a 20-minute DJ set. He runs through a dozen top-10 UK hits – several of them millionsellers, four of them Stateside smashes, most of them international chart-toppers. In a way, the Craig David of 2013 seems more at home with his material than he
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might have done a decade ago, as there is less of a disjunction between the singer and the world he sings about. Just out of his teens, David would play the R&B loverman, seducing the laydeez with luxury (‘bottle of red wine/ready to pour’), but in reality he still lived with his mum in a Southampton council flat and drove a Peugeot 206. Nowadays, aged 32, he owns properties around the world and lives in a luxury apartment in Miami, where he drives a Ferrari. And the six-pack that came squeezed into a white vest hasn’t turned to flab. As David’s popular Instagram account informs us, he spends a full two hours in the gym most mornings and another hour doing cardio training in the evenings. ‘I was a chubby kid,’ he laughs. ‘I gotta stay in shape!’ In his day, David inspired a generation of bedroom DJs and MCs – Dizzee Rascal, Tinchy Stryder, Kano – by taking UK garage music to the top of the charts. His duets with Sting and Jay Sean were global hits; Justin Bieber recently cited him as a major inspiration; Stevie Wonder sung his praises; while Jennifer Lopez revealed she used to play his songs to get her in the mood for love. (‘I found that amazing,’ laughs David. ‘I had her posters on my wall when I was a teenager!’) In 2002, when MTV sent him to play a gig in the rainforests of Costa Rica – part of a series in which stars performed in outlandish places – he was accosted by remote villagers asking him to sign bootleg copies of his CD, Born To Do It. Today, his star has faded a little: where he might have expected to play the 20,000-strong O2 Arena at his peak, he now headlines in the 3,000-capacity venue next door. But he still gets a remarkable and raucous reception. ‘You guys have been with me from the start,’ he says, close to tears. ‘You were there when I was in a council estate, spitting rhymes on pirate radio. You guys had faith!’ There’s a theory that the personalities of stars remain frozen at the moment they first become famous. Michael
started to get people shouting at me in the street, mockingly, quoting from that show, and I felt myself getting involved in it. It started to distract me from the music. ‘Eventually I realized that the stress it was causing me was self-created. With stress, you really can control it. The only way a thing like that can be a problem is if you’re excessively attached to something. What is it? Success? Pride? Are you afraid of the truth behind the parody? If you stop your ego running wild, once you learn to let go of some fear or attachment you’re holding on to, you can release that tension.’
Jennifer Lopez reveaLed she used to pLay his songs to get her in the mood for Love. ‘i found that amazing,’ Laughs david. ‘i had her posters on my waLL when i was a teenager!’ Jackson was always the shy and socially awkward 11-year-old child, while Van Morrison is forever a moody 17-year-old. Conversely, those who make it later in life tend to be better adjusted: Neil Tennant of the Pet Shop Boys is forever the amusingly world-weary 31-year-old journalist. Craig David is one exception to this rule. He was only 18 when he emerged but always seemed well adjusted. Where most of his peers in the UK garage scene were surly and aggressive, David was polite and attentive. He knowingly discussed ‘building Craig David, the brand’; he wouldn’t swear and made time to sign autographs and chat with fans. It’s something he’s kept up: last year, when a London couple made a YouTube video begging him to come to their wedding, he stunned the congregation by flying 8,000km to make the reception. ‘I always take time out for fans,’ he says, talking before the show. ‘My dad – originally from Grenada – played bass in a reggae band, who were briefly signed to EMI and then dropped. I was always aware just how precarious the music business is. I know how hard you’ve got to work to make it.’ Inevitably, David’s innocent niceness made him a target for satire. In 2002 a UK comedian, Leigh Francis, aka Avid Merrion, started a late-night comedy show in which he’d do grotesque caricatures of celebrities, with a particular emphasis on David (it was even named Bo’ Selecta!, after one of David’s early singles). A couple of years into its run, David appeared on the show, grudgingly laughing along with the parody, but later told a reporter that the whole experience was ‘hurtful beyond belief… there were times when I wanted to knock this guy out’. Nowadays he’s rather more forgiving about the caricature. ‘I didn’t understand it at first,’ says David. ‘It was a bit like Spitting Image, which was all about caricaturing popular and culturally relevant people, so in a way it was flattering. And I could see he was exaggerating certain characteristics, like my chin, or the way in which I’d refer to myself in the third person. So I tried to regard it as something external, not something I was involved in. But then I
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Outside the UK, such parodies didn’t hurt the Craig David brand. He was, briefly, quite big in the US, but bigger in other territories – Italy, France, Japan, Germany, Australia, South America. His recent world tour didn’t just take him to Europe, but to Jakarta, Kuala Lumpur and Dubai. A few months ago he was in Azerbaijan. ‘I loved Baku!’ he enthuses. ‘I met some great people and had a terrific time. I was surprised
by the architecture, especially how all the buildings were lit. I arrived at night and was amazed to see those Flame Towers, with these amazing LED light walls, which would switch between images – you’d get the flag of Azerbaijan alternating with images of all these flames going up one wall. Baku seems rooted in its history. Even the really modern buildings seem anchored in Azerbaijan’s culture – they have that kinda organic feel. For instance, there’s that huge, round, copper-coloured building – the mugham [Centre]. It’s been made to look like an instrument they play in their folk music.
in my apartment, partying. Then I’d record them and upload these mixes to my SoundCloud, just to see if anyone was interested. Next thing I know, Andy Roberts [the head of] Kiss FM in London is asking if we could broadcast them, live from Miami. So now what started out as a small drink with half a dozen friends is being syndicated around the world to millions!’ David started out as a DJ, and is comfortable in that world. ‘In those days you didn’t have the superstar DJs you have now – the David Guettas, Calvin Harrises, Tiëstos. There wasn’t the demand for that
the likes of MJ Cole, So Solid Crew, Mike Skinner and Daniel Bedingfield – is making a comeback in London’s hipper clubs, with the likes of DJs Disclosure, Mosca, Joy Orbison and Addison Groove pushing a new wave of funky garage. David’s upcoming album will revisit UK garage – one of his co-writers is Anthony Marshall from his old collaborators, the Ignorants – but there are bigger names involved. ‘As well as
‘I loved Baku! It’s excItIng. I met some great people and had a terrIfIc tIme. I’ll defInItely go there agaIn.’
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Marshall, I’ve been writing and recording with a few guys,’ says David. ‘I did three or four months with Jim Beanz, one of Timbaland’s guys out of Philadelphia, some stuff with Ryan Leslie and a few cuts with my guitarist Kwame Yeboah, a super-talented musician who’s worked with everyone.’ Craig David now seems spectacularly happy with his life, and why wouldn’t he be? He was one of the last generation of pop stars to make serious money out of the music industry – before the downloading revolution all but destroyed its sales model – and can still make a decent living by touring. At the end of his London gig, he takes out an iPhone, snaps It makes wandering around the city a bit like spending time in a cool museum. It’s exciting.’ He was also impressed by Chinar, the city-centre bar and restaurant at which he DJ’d. ‘I wasn’t sure what to expect from the audience, and I wasn’t sure what set I’d play there. But people were going crazy for R&B and hip-hop, which surprised me. I enjoyed it; I’ll definitely go out there again.’ David’s set at Chinar was an example of what he calls his TS5 set – his unique mix of DJ-ing, live MC-ing, rapping and singing, with him on the decks and the microphone. It grew out of the parties he’d hold at home in Miami – TS5 being his apartment number. ‘A few years ago I started entertaining friends before we went out clubbing,’ he reveals. ‘Between about 10:30pm and 1am, there’s not a lot to do in Miami, so people would come around to mine for a few drinks, and I’d put music on my iTunes. Soon friends were asking: “Craig, why don’t you DJ like you used to?” So I got some decks, and started spinning some stuff, and then it was like: “Why don’t you jump on the mike, like you used to?” So I ended up spinning bits of old garage, house, R&B, hip-hop, with me mixing new and old stuff I like, singing along in places, chatting over the top. Then friends started inviting friends, and before you know it, I’ve got 100 people
multi-faceted artist. But I guess there’s a niche now, and no one else is doing this. I can sing along, tease the audience, ad-lib and create a vibe.’ It’s even become a part of his live show, where his five-piece band take a breather while David rolls out the decks, mixes up snatches of TLC, Tupac Shakur, Luniz, Shabba Ranks and Nicky Romero, and watches the crowd go mental. Quite by coincidence, the brand of UK garage he helped to popularize – alongside From far left: Craig David performs in Paris, London and Milan earlier this year; with his Ferrari in Miami Beach. Left, from top: on stage in the US in 2003, alongside Sting; at the Scala in London, 2010; with Kano at the 2007 MOBO Awards at London’s O2 Arena.
his jubilant audience, and immediately uploads the photograph to his Instagram account. You can see 3,000 ecstatic people, arms in the air, smiling into the camera. It joins dozens of prestigious photos on the account – of his apartment, of him training with worldboxing champ David Haye, of him hugging Sting, of him between the Queen and Jennifer Lopez at a Royal Variety Performance. But this audience shot takes pride of place. ‘When I go through these photographs,’ he says, after the show, filled with emotion, ‘I’m proudest of that one.’
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The Uruguayan star architect Carlos Ott is transforming the cityscapes of Asia, the Gulf and Latin America with his monumental glass-and-steel towers. Now the man who first shot to fame in the 1980s with the OpĂŠra Bastille has his sights set on Azerbaijan. Words by Claire Wrathall Portrait by morgan norman
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erhaps the most enduring legacy of François Mitterrand’s 14 years as president of France was his Grandes Operations d’Architecture et d’Urbanisme, better known as the Grands Projets. This programme of monumental public-building projects marked the bicentenary of the French
Revolution and formed a legacy that would symbolize France’s international role in culture, politics and economics. It resulted in a string of structures that have become modern icons of Paris: the arch at La Défense, IM Pei’s glass Pyramid in the courtyard of the Louvre, Jean Nouvel’s superb Institut du Monde Arabe and Musée du quai Branly, and the Opéra Bastille. Some 1,500 architects entered the competition to build the latter, a companion
Carlos Ott, photographed in Baku, 2012.
auditorium to the opulent 19th-century Palais Garnier. Yet the winner was a then little-known Uruguayan, still in his thirties, with a practice in Toronto. His name was Carlos Ott. Though the project was not without controversy – the then director of the Opéra National de Paris, Hugues Gall, called it: ‘A bad answer to a question which wasn’t being asked’ – it’s fair to say it made Ott’s name and launched his career as one of the world’s stellar architects. ‘La Bastille was very challenging,’ he admits, speaking from his office in Montevideo, Uruguay. ‘Trying to do an opera house for the 20th century that would be suitable not just for classical but contemporary and even future repertoire presented a lot of difficulties, as did the cramped two-hectare site located right in the historic centre of Paris, with three subway lines running underneath. So there were a lot of problems with vibrations, acoustics, you name it.’ From an audience’s point of view, however, there’s no faulting the sightlines or the acoustics of the structure’s immense 2,700-seat auditorium. When comparing the 1,200sqm space with the supremely ornate, enchantingly atmospheric Palais Garnier, its vast monochromatic glass-andsteel structure strikes some as soulless. Yet there is no doubt that as a performing arts centre, it caught the imagination of cities across the world. Since it opened on 13 July 1989, on the evening of the 200th anniversary of the storming of the Bastille, Ott and his now multinational practice have designed two cultural centres in Argentina, and four in China – in Dongguan, Hangzhou, Henan and Wenzhou. Indeed, no other Western architect has built as many theatre complexes in the People’s Republic as Ott. Not that his practice, which has an office in Shanghai, restricts itself to cultural centres. Over the past three decades it has designed numerous developments from airports to conference centres, retail to residential, hospitals to hotels (most recently the 18-storey, 85-room Hotel Boca, billed as the world’s first football-themed hotel, which opened in Buenos Aires last year) across Latin America, Asia and the Gulf. No wonder the Azerbaijani embassy in Buenos Aires regards him as an architect whose oeuvre ought to be on its nation’s radar, hence its decision to invite him to Baku. ‘I did not know anything about Baku, except for some photographs I’d seen in National Geographic and what I’d found on the Internet,’ Ott tells me. ‘But I was interested to see it and impressed by its architecture… I went to see buildings that are 2,000 years old, little churches from the second century AD right in the centre of Baku. I saw Byzantine buildings and palaces from the 17th and 18th centuries. It reminded me very much of what I have seen in Iran – not so much Tehran, but Isfahan and Shiraz. And then there were Europeanstyle buildings from the 19th and early 20th centuries – styles that make it look like a Mediterranean city. Parts of it reminded me of Nice, Cannes, Marseille…’ He was also full of praise for the new projects he saw in the capital: ‘Buildings that are extremely modern, like the cultural
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centre by Miss Hadid, the Flame Towers, the new hotels… Some of these are outstanding.’ He enjoyed its easy-going atmosphere too. ‘Late at night I walked along that large promenade by the sea [Baku Boulevard], and on a Sunday there were so many people out, having tea or playing chess or cards outside.’ The boulevard, on its seaboard side, he says, reminded him of the Malecón in Havana, the 8km esplanade that stretches the length of the city, from the mouth of the harbour. ‘I only wish the one in Cuba was so well kept!’ Azerbaijan is a country Ott hopes to build in. Certainly his experience suggests he is well
‘emerging markets’, a term that he tactfully dismisses on the grounds that these countries – the so-called BRICs and their neighbours – have without exception ancient cultures, so it’s more a case that these countries are in fact ‘re-emerging’. ‘They all have heritage and traditions, so you have to be careful. You should not approach it as if you were going to a country that is starting from zero. If you look at China, India, Azerbaijan, you have to be humble because these were advanced countries when those in Europe were not. In the first century AD, for example, Europe was just beginning to develop, whereas Azerbaijan was already at the centre of the Silk Road, and the trade between East and West.’ It’s therefore critical when embarking on a project, he says, to consult local engineers, artists and designers, ‘in order to bring knowledge that it would be absolutely absurd for me and my team to think we could learn in a week, a month, even a year…’ In short, developing a multi-disciplinary team with people from inside the country and outside his company. Although Ott concedes that of course the reason his practice will have been and steel. At the moment he is working on a huge project in Makati, part of metropolitan Manila, in the Philippines, that consists of five towers, a hotel, a performance hall for opera, concerts and musicals, a shopping mall and a large plaza in the city centre. And this isn’t even his largest project to date; TCS Siruseri technology park in Chennai, India, which his practice designed for Tata Consultancy Services, is one of the biggest, with a staggering 480,000sqm of floor space. It consequently comes as a surprise that the buildings that most inspired Ott in his
Ott’s signature style is mOdern inclining tO the mOnumental: epic, tOwering structures Of glass and steel. qualified when it comes to dealing with terrain challenges and climatic conditions. First, Baku is a famously windy city, but then, on the coast of Montevideo-born Ott’s native Uruguay, winds of up to 170km/h are not unknown on the coast. Second, there can be dramatic changes in temperature, with pleasant summers but very cold winters. Temperature control is an area he is becoming increasingly authoritative on, orientating structures to take advantage of the cooling potential of wind, for example, or capitalizing on canopies to provide shade, even adding humidity to arid air in countries such as India in order to reduce temperatures by as much as 10 degrees, after which there’s always air con to fall back on, generated by solarpower where possible. For Ott, local expertise is the key to building in what has become known in the West as
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China’s Henan Art Centre (top and above) is a dynamic cultural space, while the design of the International Conference Centre in Hangzhou (opposite top and far right) references the moon and sun. Playa Vik (from right) on Uruguay’s coast is sculptural in design and features a 17m-wide glass wall. engaged in the first place is that those commissioning ‘want a different view’. Even so, ‘our designs must be rooted in the rich culture of the country we are building in because each nation has its own particularities – the way the construction industry works; the philosophy of the people who live there; the different regulations that the municipal and regional governments and planning departments impose… These are things that you cannot pretend to really understand if you’re a foreigner.’ If Ott has a signature style, it is modern inclining to the monumental: epic, often towering structures of glass
youth tend to be exquisite, intricately decorated historic structures. Trained first at the University of Uruguay, then the University of Hawaii and the Washington University School of Architecture in St Louis, Missouri, he was, he says, awestruck by the Alhambra in Granada, Spain, when he first saw it as a student. ‘As you approach it, it looks like an awesome fortress up on the hill, with those huge, tall walls. And then you pass through
its low gate into the finest, most beautiful palace, with its mosaics and patios filled with orange trees and reflecting pools and the most exquisite interiors. Yet the Alhambra was built in the 14th century; it has stood for nearly 700 years.’ He also found inspiration in the baroque churches of Bernini and Borromini in Rome, calling them ‘wonderful, majestic monuments despite the fact that some of them are very small. They’re such theatrical buildings; they really touched me when I was a student.’ Less surprisingly, the giants of the 20th century also had an impact on the architect. ‘Our school in Uruguay was connected to the Bauhaus, and of course the likes of Alvar Aalto, Frank Lloyd Wright and Le Corbusier were also an influence.’ That said, he would not, for all the money in the world, do a ‘historic’ building. ‘I strongly believe in building the architecture of our time. But the more I travel the more I appreciate the work that was done in the past. When you visit a building like the Taj Mahal, for example, the quality is astonishing, not only the refined and beautiful design and selection of materials,
the boundaries both environmentally and stylistically, through minimizing energy use, harvesting rainwater and recycling water used in the home, plus the innovative use of insulating technologies that enable the property to be used year-round. Inside, the décor is discreetly luxurious: ceilings of dark striped Makassar ebony, retractable floor-to-ceiling windows, wooden baths and a sculpted bronze door made by the Uruguayan artist Pablo Atchugarry. The interior is beautiful and understated, all the better to show the Viks’ remarkable art collection, highlights of which include Anselm Kiefer’s The Secret Life of Plants, a light installation by James Turrell in the library, a set of marine photographs by Montserrat Soto in one of the bedrooms, frescos by Marcelo Legrand in one of the suites, along with a rare desk and bench (the ‘Iceberg’) by Zaha Hadid. Outside there is a stunning black granite infinity pool cantilevered out over the beach, its floor inset with a fibre-optic map of the southern hemisphere’s night sky, and a fire pit has been sunk into the decking, to protect its occupants from the chill sea breezes. Ott describes the house as organic, in the way it seems to ‘grow’ out of the landscape. ‘The main building is like an iceberg,’ he says. ‘All the low-grade areas, the services and parking are underground to minimize its impact on the landscape.’ The design of the house evolved out of many conversations with Vik and his family at their various homes around the world. As he describes the logistics of building on such an exposed site – steeply sloping
‘our designs must be rooted in the rich culture of the country we are building in because each nation has its own particularities.’
to that quality today, or at least not as well as they did.’ The important thing with architecture, Ott believes, is to remain open to new ideas. How else to explain his acceptance to build the Playa Vik retreat, near Faro José Ignacio, 37km from the super-fashionable Uruguayan resort of Punta del Este? It was one of the smallest (if among the most lavish) projects his practice has completed. ‘I never usually do
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buildings of this size,’ he says, of the US$10 million, 4,260sqm property. (For the purposes of comparison, his scheme for the Shanghai Harbour International Passengers Terminal Centre ran to a total area of 280,000sqm.) ‘For whatever reason, I’ve always been involved in major projects.’ But an approach from the Norwegian-Uruguayan billionaire investor Alex Vik
From top: Ott has built more theatre complexes in China than any architect, such as in Hangzhou and Dongguan; the Opéra Bastille in Paris was Ott’s claim to fame; the sprawling Siruseri Techno Park in Chennai, India.
and his wife, Carrie (‘a very active, very interesting couple, much interested in contemporary art’) convinced Ott to design what is in effect a futuristic central house surrounded by six two- and threebedroom guest casitas that since 2011 has functioned as a little hotel when the Viks are not in residence. It’s a jewel of a property: sculptural in design with its sleek titanium sides that shelter an inclined 17m-wide wall of glass facing the ocean. Yet for all these shiny, silvery surfaces, the building manages to integrate subtly with the landscape. The roofs of the casitas, for instance, are planted with sea grasses and other local plants that flower at different times of year, so that there’s colour whenever possible. The project pushed
and one battered by powerful winds that blow off the South Atlantic, plus the rain, salt and spray they bring – one may be put in mind of conditions on Azerbaijan’s Caspian seaboard, a littoral Ott was keen to praise for its beauty and variety. ‘The coast around Baku is not straight like it is in, say, Miami,’ where he is also working on a 60-storey residential tower on Brickell Avenue. ‘In Azerbaijan you have many inlets, and there’s the peninsula,’ he explains. ‘In Miami, you only ever look east, which means you see the sun rise out of the water but never the sun set into it. Here you have views in different directions and orientations. I was amazed!’ Indeed, one can’t help but sense that Ott is already envisaging the potential of leading-edge waterfront retreats on the Absheron peninsula. ‘Azerbaijan really intrigues me,’ he says. ‘I would love very much to design something there.’ A dream that some enlightened art collector might do well to turn into reality.
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alamy. courtesy carlos ott. cristobal palma.
but the craftsmanship. It’s the same when you visit the great medieval cathedrals in Europe or the great pagodas in China – you cannot help but be humbled. Can you imagine how they built Notre-Dame de Paris at the time it was built in the 12th and 13th centuries? Even with all the technology, the new materials, the new possibilities, I don’t know if you could build
Chilling out with the sweet smoke from a shisha is now becoming a global pastime. At Londonâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Baku Bistro, our two sultry hookah handlers demonstrate how to shisha in style. For max indulgence, pair fruit-infused tobacco with some Middle Eastern pastries, sweet tea with cardamom, and a whole lot of attitude. Photographs by richard haughton Styling by felix elisabetta forma Art direction by tom Wolfe
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Blow rings around a watermelon shisha (previous page) with mixed-berry flavoured tobacco (pictured here). On the previous page, Zanna (left) wears a dress and trousers by Paul Smith and a ring by StePhen WebSter. Honey wears a suit by maria GrachvoGel and a ring by StePhen WebSter.
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For an extra chill-out factor, opt for an ice pipe. Honey wears a dress by RichaRd Nicoll and a ring by StepheN WebSteR; her scarf is made from tobacco leaves.
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Take half a pineapple, sprinkle on some grape-flavoured tobacco, add a few hot coals and voilà – who said smoking ain’t good for you? Zanna wears a dress and belt by House of Holland and a ring by stepHen Webster.
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Red-hot charcoal kicks off the action.
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Fruit base + sweet tobacco = half an hour of shisha bliss. Zanna wears a dress by House of Holland.
Tobacco leaves can be infused with a host of flavours â&#x20AC;&#x201C; from vanilla and molasses to peach, kiwi and apple. You can also spice up your life with cinnamon or clove. Honey wears a dress by Maria GrachvoGel; her scarf is made from tobacco leaves. Models honey Davis-wilkinson at eliTe and Zanna van vorsTenBosch at selecT. Hair oskar Pera at caren. Make-up liZ DaXaUer at caren. With thanks to BakU BisTro, London.
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aura The
of Ornella
The award-winning Italian actress Ornella Muti has worked with legendary directors from Marco Ferreri to Woody Allen and starred alongside leading men from Alain Delon to Sylvester Stallone. We meet the screen siren at her home in Rome, where she muses over her 40-year career, the future of film and why she just loves Azerbaijan. Words by ROSARIO MORABITO Illustration by ABBey wATkInS
n the top of a hill in Rome, close to the Vatican, the Italian film star Ornella Muti’s home is a world of white. A private lift opens onto a bright white room: sofas, floor, ceiling – it’s wall-to-wall white. Grand windows overlook the city, taking in the panorama from St Peter’s Square to the Piazza Venezia. Upon my arrival, after a formal welcome by one of the housekeepers, I get a livelier greeting from a little chihuahua named Tigrish (later on, a few cats will appear too). The lady of the house, I’m told, isn’t quite ready (as is the prerogative of every true diva), so I take the opportunity to have a look around. On a wall is a giant Warholesque canvas of Muti, while a long, low table displays a series of Tibetan bells, and purple and lilac orchids are dotted here and there. A little side room catches my
eye, in which some stools are positioned in front of what looks like an altar. I make a note to drop it into the conversation later, then take a seat and wait for the actress. Muti has been a glamorous face of Italian cinema since the 1970s. After a short spell as a model, she made her big-screen debut at just 15 years old. She started acting at a time when the film industry was blessed with a host of legendary directors – most of whom she has worked with – and she became popular across Italy, France and Spain, alternating auteur cinema with more commercial titles. But it was her role as Princess Aura in the 1980 Hollywood flick Flash Gordon that sent her career global. A year later saw Muti star alongside US actor Ben Gazzara in Marco Ferreri’s Tales of Ordinary Madness, a film that revealed her true acting potential. In her 40-year career
she has appeared in more than 100 movies and scooped numerous awards, including two Globo d’Oros (the Italian equivalent of the Golden Globes), two Silver Ribbons and a host of European film festival gongs. And she isn’t done yet; most recently she was part of an international cast that included Alec Baldwin, Roberto Benigni and Penélope Cruz for Woody Allen’s 2012 film, To Rome With Love. When Muti finally enters, she is friendly and direct. She’s more petite than I imagined, and her famous cat eyes are a striking smoky blue. Wearing a black silk sleeveless top (revealing her toned arms) and black Capri pants, she looks eminently more approachable than a few nights ago, when I saw her at the Jean Paul Gaultier haute couture show at Altaroma fashion week, where she was in the front row, in full diva attire: dressed in a long dark silk gown with her dark blonde hair in a striking updo. ‘Work has been my life for so many years,’ announces Muti in her deep, firm voice. ‘We could be here until tomorrow morning if I were to mention all the directors I’ve worked with. The list is truly a long one.’ A few of her favourites then? ‘Perhaps Mario Monicelli? Or Dino Risi? Or Citto Maselli, Ettore Scola… They are all linked to special projects in my life, and they were all great. Movies like The Voyage of Captain Fracassa were unrepeatable adventures.’ Her eyes drift off for a moment and she has a hint of a smile – that same sweet smile her fans know well. ‘I owe a lot to Damiano Damiani,’ who directed Muti in her debut film, La Moglie Piú Bella (The Most Beautiful Wife), based on a true story of a rebellious Sicilian girl growing up in a staunchly traditional region of southern Italy. The Italian director Marco Ferreri sensed Muti’s potential for more challenging scripts; he chose her for the lead in the French film La Dernière Femme (The Last Woman), alongside a young Gérard Depardieu. ‘That was a truly special movie, but very tough,’ she recalls. ‘Halfway through filming, [Ferreri] stopped talking to me as I couldn’t cope with the way he worked. He was famous in the industry for not following the rules on set, and he was trying to draw out my potential by teasing me non-stop. It took me a few years to understand that, and [when I did], we
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everything as it limits creativity,’ she says. ‘You miss that legendary figure who used to fall in love with a script, deciding to take all sorts of risks to turn it into a movie. Now their only concern is to appeal to an audience that’s as broad as possible.’ Every now and then we get interrupted. Muti’s phone rings and it’s her son. Then her agent pulls her aside, briefly. Later, Muti’s younger daughter Carolina comes in – she’s about to leave the house but stops to kiss Mummy, who doesn’t let her go without a few words of advice (as any good Italian mother would do). It’s a never-ending bustle. Muti was only 19 when she gave birth to her first daughter, Naike, today an actress and musician (and a mother herself). In the 1980s, Muti married the Italian actor Alessio Orano, with whom she worked on her first movie, though it didn’t work out. She later married Federico Facchinetti, father to her younger daughter Carolina and her son Andrea (who lives with her and who also pops in to say hi). Since the late 1990s, following the end of her second marriage, the actress has had two long relationships, first with the plastic surgeon Stefano Piccolo and, more recently, with the French entrepreneur Fabrice Kerhervé. Muti’s work has taken her to the US, France and Italy. I wonder how it differs, working in these countries. ‘Americans are very strict while on set,’ she reveals. ‘If I am doing a scene with another actor, no one else can be around us: no interfering. The
‘Ferreri was Famous in the industry For not Following the rules, and he was trying to draw out my potential by teasing me non-stop. it took me a Few years to understand that.’ as a volcano of ideas. The same goes for Sylvester Stallone: we got along quite well.’ And she is obviously proud of her recent collaboration with Woody Allen: ‘He called me saying he had a cameo for me in his new movie, set in Rome. I was honoured.’ How does Muti view the modern film industry? ‘Something has got lost,’ she sighs. ‘And I believe it is the role of the executive producer. We used to [work with] entrepreneurs who were almost despots on set. They were investing their own money, hence the movie was their baby. They would come on the set, checking everything in person. We felt as if movies were handcrafted.’ And today? She gets fired up. ‘[Now] the people who decide if a movie is made or not are the TV executives. All that matters is the right to show the movie on television, and that deeply changes
French are uncompromising when it comes to making a film: if anyone talks during a scene, then it’s a big drama.’ And her home country? ‘Italy has a different system, I would say.’ She smiles and tells me how, on an Italian set, the cast tend to become like one big family, all eating and hanging out together. And what brought Muti to Azerbaijan, which she visited for the first time in May last year? ‘The first time I met the First Lady, Mehriban [Aliyeva], was in Italy: she was here to present Azerbaijani art and culture. I met her again at the Italian launch of Baku magazine in Rome, and finally a third time, when the exhibition “Fly to Baku” was presented here.’ Since then the actress has been invited to Baku several times: enough for her to develop an attachment to the city, the people and the local culture. ‘I loved Baku straight away,’ she smiles. ‘The first time I visited, the weather was great. It is a beautiful city. What struck me the most was the way in which I was invited: as a guest, and nothing else. Instead of doing interviews, I was taken around to see all the sights: the caravanserais where merchants used to gather, the sites where the oil
Previous page: Muti at the Cannes Film Festival, 2003. This page, clockwise from above: with a young Gérard Depardieu in ‘The Last Woman’ (1976); with the director Marco Ferreri; with Hanna Schygulla (left) in ‘The Future is Woman’ (1984); Muti in 2010. Opposite page, clockwise from main image: the actor Ben Gazzara and Muti in ‘Tales of Ordinary Madness’ (1981); as Princess Aura in ‘Flash Gordon’ (1980); with Alessio Orano in ‘Experiencia Prematrimonial’ (1972); ‘Oscar’ (1991), starred, from left, Marisa Tomei, Sylvester Stallone and Muti; on set with Woody Allen in ‘To Rome With Love’ (2012); with the actor Alain Delon on the set of ‘Death of a Corrupt Man’ (1977). 106 Baku.
alamy. corbis. getty. ronald grant archive. wireimage.
worked together again on two other movies,’ including Tales of Ordinary Madness, which was critically acclaimed in Europe. Among the American directors Muti has worked with, she has kept in touch with John Landis, with whom she worked on the set of Oscar, a 1991 comedy with Sylvester Stallone. ‘I am still friends with John and his wife, who made the costumes for that movie,’ says Muti. ‘Working with him was fun; he is a very entertaining person, as well
used to be extracted. Beautiful locations. Oh and a place just outside Baku, where there’s a burning flame [Ateshgah].’ In Baku, Muti was impressed by the seaside promenade and the sites of the Old Town. ‘One night we were dining out and the Maiden Tower was covered in light projections: it looked as if it was turning on itself. It was unbelievable,’ she says, frantically scrolling through her phone to show me her Instagram photos. ‘I ate bread from the local bakeries,’ she continues, ‘and although people recognized me, they were surprised to see me. Then I realized that the First Lady hadn’t announced my visit. It was a gesture of pure kindness, and it is the first time in my career that has ever happened.’ Muti confesses to me that she would love to work on a movie filmed in the country. ‘God
‘when it comes to making a film, the french are uncompromising: if anyone talks during a scene, it’s a big drama.’ knows how many amazing stories are waiting to be told in Azerbaijan,’ she says. One can’t help but sense that there is a personal connection too, given Muti’s Russian roots (she was born to an Estonian mother and a Neapolitan father). She tells me she is currently studying Russian and that she first explored Russian culture through its literature and ‘the incredible stories my mother used to tell me’. Recently, the actress has also travelled throughout Eastern Europe, where her partner Fabrice spends a lot of time for work. ‘Whenever I have been there,’ she says, ‘I would see these women [who are] extremely poor, coming to me with gifts; often leather goods which they handcrafted. They come to you and give you all they have.’
Our conversation has switched to a more ethereal note, and I feel the moment is right to ask about the side room that I noticed on my arrival. Little more than a cubicle, it contains a wooden cabinet filled with ideograms. I knew that Muti was a Buddhist, but nothing more than that. ‘I got acquainted to this particular [type of] Buddhism through a close friend of mine,’ she explains. ‘Initially I practised a little every day, until I started to see things turning in the right direction, and I felt more joy and contentment. I still practise today.’ The branch of Buddhism that Muti embraced was preached by the 13th-century Japanese monk, Nichiren Daishonin, and is based on reciting a mantra. ‘We all have different ways of pursuing our own spirituality,’ she says. ‘I also meditate, which I enjoy very much. It is the silence of the mind: a kind of concentration that, once learned, you bring to everything you do.’ With that, Muti’s agent, who has been quietly vigilant throughout the meeting, declares our time is finished. A handshake. A hug. And Muti disappears. The bustle doesn’t stop. Neither does a diva.
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Boy Take one ultra-modern car museum and racetrack, add a contemporary artist, stir, and see what happens. Thatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s what we did with Orkhan Huseynov and the celebrated Mercedes-Benz World in Brooklands, outside London.
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All the images on these pages are Huseynovâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s interpretation of Mercedes-Benz World.
‘I was InspIred by the atmosphere of the place – the colours, the smells, the vIbratIons, the melancholIc weather. the Idea was to repeat old technIques wIth new technology, usIng colours from gravures and old photography.’
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‘when I was 20 I used to drIve my father’s old russIan car. It was scary, even at 80km/h. drIvIng the mercedes, as the accelerator pedal hIt the floor, was fun. the roar of the engIne was awesome. I’ve never experIenced anythIng lIke It.’
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Clockwise from right: mural by Eduardo Kobra, in Chelsea, New York; ‘Untitled (zebra finch nest)’ (2013), Björn Braun, with leather (top) and black bird’s nest; visitors at the Independent art fair; ‘Untitled’ (1966), Carlo Zinelli; displays at Palazzo di Everything.
if you’re at: Venice Biennale Escape to: Palazzo di Everything You can leave the museums, the money and the masses; Palazzo di Everything is all about the art. It’s a celebration of those who ‘make art for themselves’. They will let you see it too, of course. Exhibiting untrained and undiscovered artists, the palazzo is barely a gondola’s length from the Giardini, in the ornate greenhouse Serra dei Giardini. If you are there for the art, this year’s highlight is work by the late self-taught Italian artist, Carlo Zinelli. If you are there for philosophy, hang around the caravan park where everyone from the Beirut-based artist Akram Zaatari to the designer Angela Missoni have popped in. If you are there for the beautiful people, head to the café and hold court with a Bellini and a few Big Ideas. musevery.com/ilpalazzo
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If you’re at: The Armory Show Escape to: Independent A confused mind doesn’t buy. Shying away from the hotchpotch format sometimes associated with fringe fairs, Independent, based at the old Dia building in New York’s Chelsea, is one of the few to curate its space, with galleries chosen that complement one another, giving it a more cohesive feel. The fair is now past its slightly more bonkers phase (the first Independent in 2010 featured a giant inflatable rat by the provocative Brooklyn arts collective, Bruce High Quality Foundation) and is free from the loud-slogan artworks that dominate many other fairs, gaining a reputation as the place to pick up solid, interesting works by new artists from around the world. That doesn’t mean the kooky has been sucked out however; last year’s hit was Björn Braun’s decorated finch nests – woven by (real) birds with ribbon and thread. independentnewyork.com
ART ReALITY
THE EDGE OF
We all know that moment when you’ve made your third pass by the White Cube stand and bought all there is to buy at Zwirner. It’s called Fair Fatigue, and the only way to deal with it is to hit the fringe. We bring you six of the coolest side-fairs. Words by CAROLINE DAVIES
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If you’re at: Art Basel Miami Beach Escape to: Pulse Trying to make the art world crack a smile, Pulse feels like the highly caffeinated fair on the fringe. Perennially buzzing, it is based in the some-time film studio, the Ice Palace, across the bridge from Basel, and expends most of its energy trying not to take itself too seriously. Passive observers may want to pass on this one: Pulse is known for its interactive exhibitions including the ‘Pulse Play’ area, which last year had an exhibition it described as ‘super-duper fun’. Set up as a pseudo-living room, the installation showed videos with the artist Casey Neistat hemmed in an information booth, answering any questions the audience cared to throw at him. We’re hoping for a return of last year’s ‘art cops’; they’ll issue tickets to anyone caught breaking the unwritten rules of art. Definitely an excuse to act up. pulse-art.com
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If you’re at: Frieze London Escape to: Merge Festival After a long day sipping elderflower spritzers in Regent’s Park, the art world can let its hair down and bop over to Bankside. The Merge Festival stretches down the banks of the River Thames from the Tate Modern to London Bridge, taking over the area’s Dickensian streets. Artists are encouraged to run riot, turning the scores of blank walls and hoardings into public works of art, while musicians perform by the water. This year the artist Candy Chang will recreate her celebrated interactive installation, which encourages the public to finish the sentence: ‘Before I die I want to…’ in chalk on a blackboard, while Londonbased sculptor Alex Chinneck is turning the capital on its head, literally: he is planning to turn a building on Blackfriars Road ‘upside down’. No, we haven’t a clue what that entails either. Wait and see. mergefestival.co.uk
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Alberto PAredes/AlAmy. chiArA Pecenik. dAniel sPehr. GAleri ilAydA. meG Pukel. meyer rieGGer. rAwdon/wyAtt. richArd levine/AlAmy. sAnAtorium GAllery.
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Clockwise from bottom left: ‘Before I die’, Candy Chang; Pulse, Miami; the Ice Palace; music at the Tate; café culture in Istanbul; ‘Double Simulation Face 1’ (2012), Ozcan Uzkur; Liste (and below); ‘King Jong Il’ (2012), Ludovic Bernhardt.
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If you’re at: Contemporary Istanbul Escape to: Karga Bar The chaotic Karga Bar in the Turkish metropolis is a cultural institution. When the city fills with artists and galleries for Contemporary Istanbul, you can find some of the most original minds nestled behind the unmarked green door in Kadife Street. The bar hosts art events, film workshops, comic writers’ collectives, dance classes and much more in the upstairs art gallery. An anti-establishment establishment, it’s full of welcoming creatives, ready to take you under their wing for the evening. Before you know it you will be dancing to Turkish soul and French rap – they pride themselves on their eclectic music tastes – into the early hours. kargabar.org
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If you’re at: Art Basel Escape to: Liste One of the first ever fringe fairs, Liste is youth obsessed. Created back in 1996, this trailblazer was born out of young galleries’ frustration at being overlooked by the big fairs, and later, the satellite’s success went on to attract even established galleries seeking a more open-minded crowd. Based in an old brewery, Liste’s 60-or-so handpicked galleries are all less than five years old, and feature new artists considered to be setting trends and making waves. Although its no-over-40s rule has been relaxed, the fair is still filled with fresh-faced artists, all straining to show the world their work. Previous artists have included the Los Angeles-based painter and installation artist Matt Connors and Egyptian artist Basim Magdy, who recently scooped a coveted Abraaj Group Art Prize. Liste.ch
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Think that wedding you went to in Tuscany last year was a bit excessive? Think again. Welcome to the world of nuptials in Azerbaijan, where thrones are de rigueur, the music can be heard from space, and where, if itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s not lavish, itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s nothing, darling. Words by AnnA Blundy Illustrations by KAori onishi
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hen I told people I was writing a piece on Azerbaijani weddings, they laughed. ‘Have you been to one before?’ someone asked, with a curl of the lip. ‘Good luck!’ quipped one. ‘Take your ear plugs!’ advised another. The one word included in everyone’s response was ‘loud’. I was beginning to feel anxious. Then again, extravagance is an Azerbaijani character trait, so I should have known to expect noise, glamour, glitz – and a sabre. I got it. Weddings are big business in Azerbaijan and 500 guests is not considered in any way excessive. Although most receptions are held at the ritzier hotels, there are lots of Baku venues specifically for wedding parties, some places earsplittingly packing in two at a time. Beribboned limos pile up at the entrance while the thunder and roar of music from inside is audible from the street. From the motorway. Very possibly from outer space. Once you are through the doors you’ll find dark-eyed, slick-haired chaps in tuxedos, standing around smoking near the dessert buffet. This is indeed a thing to behold (the buffet not the chaps – although them too). Fabulous designs are carved into watermelons – rabbits, roses, scenes from traditional poems, the names of the bride and groom. Trays and trays of pakhlava ooze, rosescented, onto the platters, and cubes of fruit and marshmallow are artistically shish-kebabbed. Little girls in elaborate dresses and patent-leather shoes chase after little boys in full black tie, dodging through the legs of the smokers, skittering under the bedecked tables and squealing above the mind-boggling roar of the mugham band. When the doors swing open the full, fevered force of the celebration hits you like an explosion. Conversation is completely out of the question as a result of the noise level, so tables of exquisitely dressed people sit in stunned silence.
119 Baku.
Famous mugham singers stand at the mike, turned up to full volume, as the music blasts out of speakers from, seemingly, everywhere. Waiters dash around serving course after course of dinner. Whole grilled fish come out on silver platters; kebabs, chicken, lamb cutlets, stuffed vegetables, salad after salad, nuts, raisins and graceful bowls of ice-cream all seem to rush up and down swirling staircases, around dancers and between columns, amid a swish of a napkin, a flash of a fork. The couple sit, in one case, enthroned on a glittering and decorated raised platform, waited on by footmen in German 18th-century dress â&#x20AC;&#x201C; white wigs, beauty spots, tail coats â&#x20AC;&#x201C; and everything is as brightly lit as an operating theatre for the many cameras that are swooping around on the shoulders of technicians and suspended above the guests on some faintly precarious-looking cranes.
120 Baku.
Women in veils danced around men With scimitars, their complex and otherWorldly movements that in any other place in the World might seem to come from another age, but not here in baku.
Big-day blowout: Azerbaijani weddings all are glitz, glamour and a whole lot of bling.
Everyone in Azerbaijan has a wedding story. Even now, many couples follow the traditional courtship, including formal agreements between the bride and groom’s parents, culminating in sweet tea if things go well, unsweetened if it’s a ‘no’. There are months of wooing, during which the groom’s family showers the bride-to-be and her family with lavish gifts, then days of segregated celebration – women in one area, men in another – before the groom finally arrives for his bride, followed by musicians and dancers. In some cases, rare these days, the actual wedding party might be segregated with frenzied single-sex dance-offs which last all night. The artist Museib Amirov says that his great-grandmother remained veiled until after the wedding ceremony and, when her veil was finally raised, his great-grandfather nearly fainted in horror at her ugliness. However, they went on to be happily married for more than 60 years. He also tells stories of the old-fashioned weddings. Legend has it that a hapless foreigner
complained to the waiter that something odd was stuck to the bottom of his dinner plate. The waiter, assuming he was complaining about the paltry size of his joint, went away and brought him a bigger one. There are too many people who tell this story for it to be anything but apocryphal. Earlier this year, another couple, Vusal and Nargiz, tied the knot in Baku and held their bash at the Buta Palace, one of the city’s many vast and slightly out-of-town wedding venues. Screens around the hall showed footage of the bride and groom growing up, in a series of photos from babyhood to meeting each other, holidays together and finally an engagement kiss. Speeches were made (loud – mike and lights turned up, up, up, mercifully briefly) and people wept with joy. Songs, meaningful to the couple – both traditional mugham and, oh bliss, 1980s pop – were performed by friends and professionals. And when the dancers burst in, a roar of joy erupted from the whole crowd. Women in veils danced around men with scimitars, their complex and other-worldly movements that in any other place in the world might seem to come from another age, but not here in Baku, where the past is still absolutely tangible. You could see on the faces of the older guests that this dance
was something real, remembered from childhood. The days when a man might need a scimitar and a young veiled girl might need a man with a scimitar are within living memory to the older generation here. The male guests, some of them brilliant traditional dancers, leapt to join in, never mind the years of eating too many kutabi (mouthwateringly gorgeous stuffed pancakes); flicking their feet and wrists in a courtship that would have the most modest maiden in something of a frenzy. When the women got up and joined in, a kind of flirtation in dance ensued and everyone knew the moves. Although there is no touching and nobody was showing much flesh, it looked sexier, more suggestively erotic, than any vulgar Western equivalent. When the just-married couple left their glittering platform to dance together they were circled by adoring friends and relations who cheered and wept as Vusal and Nargiz kissed, some of us watching from afar on the ubiquitous pop-concert screens around the hall. Azerbaijani weddings are such a show, such big business, so fantastically elaborate, that it is easy to see them as tacky, insincere and an excuse for a glut of opulence. But when the love is real and the support of loved ones is boundless, these almost phantasmagorical whirls of noise, light, food and chiffon are, behind the scream of the mugham, quietly moving, life affirming and astonishingly beautiful.
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122 Baku.
seeds of Life
Some of us probably never look into our daily cup (cups?) of coffee and wonder exactly how bean to brew came about, but that’s what was on the mind of the photographer Reza Deghati (pictured below) as he travelled to six countries in four months, capturing the many faces behind sustainable coffee production. The award-winning Iranian-born photojournalist photographed coffee farmers and communities, as well as agronomists, engineers and technicians, and his work is now being shown in an exhibition in the UK called ‘Soul of Coffee’. Whether capturing husband-and-wife teams at a coffee cherry plantation in India (below), scaling heights to shoot Guatemala’s tallest volcano, or asking José Rovilson Ribeiro (left) to pose for him in Brazil – the first stop in Reza’s journey – the beautiful images show the shared moments and human links in creating, ultimately, that perfect espresso. Your caramel macchiato may never quite taste the same again.
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PhotograPh by reza.
‘Soul of Coffee’ is on until 3 November at Kew Gardens, Richmond, UK.
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lankaran
thermal springs, tea plantations and dramatic mountain scenery combine in this coastal, subtropical city in the south of azerbaijan.
Where is it?
Deep down south, four hours from Baku, 270km along the Caspian coast. Past the lunar landscapes of the mud volcanoes, the landscape turns rather Provence-esque: fields of yellow and promenades of bay trees line the roads and locals sell strawberries by the bucket. The road to Lankaran (far below) is paved with cay (tea) signs and nature reserves; when the trees start coming as thickly as the cay signs, you know youâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re close.
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stay. In a stone cottage at Relax in the mountains (relax.com.az); at Vilesh Hotel (vilesh.az), close to the hot springs at Istisu; or in one of the many homestays. go. Tea harvest is late May to early June. For bird-watchers, migration time is November. eat. Lavangi: chicken or fish stuffed with walnuts, onions, raisins and herbs. Follow the signs off the mountain roads to secluded kitchens serving it hot off the spit onto woodland tables. links. Azerbaijan.travel; Azerbaijan24.com; Pasha.az. 124 Baku.
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What’s it like?
Green mountains, gushing waterfalls, quiet valleys and placid lakes; you could be on a Jurassic Park film set. Tea is a big deal. A sculpture of a giant samovar (similar to an urn; below) stands at the entrance to the city; look out too for the metal statue of a fierce woman holding a huge teacup in one hand and a sword in the other. Is this a frazzled hostess at the end of a dinner party? No, it’s a symbol of balancing strength with friendship. Be prepared if you accept a cup of tea; it’s strong stuff. One spoonful brewed for 12 minutes is enough for one three-litre samovar, so a kilo should last you a lifetime.
baku azerbaijan
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Lankaran
words by caroline davies. illustration by andrew lyons. photographs by emil khalilov.
Caspian Sea
few fields away (it’s the result of changing sea levels). The tower has been used for defence, as a prison and, more recently, as the base for the Communist Party. Stalin was reportedly held there until he escaped through an underground tunnel. Also on the architecture trail is the towering 100-yearold former palace of the Mir Akhmed of Talysh Khan (left). He built it for his wife who, it is claimed, wanted a view of the entire city, hence the three storeys. Today it’s a museum.
What else is it known for?
What’s there to see?
Hot springs are dotted around the region. The most famous one, in nearby Astara, is called Yanar Bulag, or The Burning Spring, which sounds like an aggressive aerobics move. The spring has unusually high methane levels – so high that the water will catch fire if you bring a naked flame too close. Lankaran Mayak is a white lighthouse in the city centre, an unusual location given that the Caspian coast is a road and a
Citrus fruits, wildlife and pensioners; it’s almost like an Azerbaijani Florida. Lankaran’s sweet(ish) lemons are soughtafter, both inside and outside the country, and the stalls of the city’s central market are piled high with them at harvest time. The elusive Caucasian leopard prowls the nearby Hirkan National Park (top), and if you time your visit right you might spot flamingos and pelicans on the shore as they take a minibreak on their migration. Take a car up the mountain road to Lerik (opposite, top). The ladies on the sunbeds in Palm Springs are mere spring chickens compared to the residents of this mountain town. Home to Shirali Muslimov, who is said to have reached the age of 168, the town boasts more than 50 centenarians today; it even has a museum dedicated to them (above). Must be something in the water.
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126 Baku.
ElEna HaGvErdiyEva
The AzerbAijAni ArTisT hAs exhibiTed widely in The CAuCAsus, As well As FrAnCe And AusTriA. we meeT her AT her sTudio in bAku. PhoTogrAPh by Fakhriyya mammadova
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s soon as people discover you’re an artist, their voices soften, their eyes light up and their attitude changes,’ says Elena Hagverdiyeva. ‘Everyone is pleased to meet you. I think that’s because they recall the happiness from their childhood. ‘I recently had an exhibition in Baku, where I tried a new technique of painting on wood, inspired by a centuries-old technique first used for painting icons. It involved applying a special primer, layer by layer, and bringing the panel surface to a smooth, mirror-like finish. In my case, everything was simpler. I selected old door panels from commodes and cupboards, and lightly restored them while preserving their spirit and patina. I then painted my pictures on them. ‘I think it’s interesting to see an artist’s work in their studio, where the pictures are in a closed environment; they say a lot about the artist. My first studio was in Baku, where ‘‘Long Live Painting!’’ was written on an outside wall. You descended a dusty staircase to reach the studio. It was a real labyrinth. The walls and floors disappeared under layers of the strangest things: old trumpets and trombones, hacksaws and carpenter’s planes, dried dragonflies, gilded clogs... There were also small baskets filled with folded paper containing strangers’ wishes. ‘I have plans to finish a book, dedicated to the memory of my late husband, [the artist] Udjal Hagverdiyev. ‘The artist is still alive while his art lives, and art lives while it is preserved.’
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Elena Hagverdiyeva’s work can be seen at the Museum of Modern Art and QGallery in Baku. She is pictured left with ‘Spring’ (2013); below is ‘The Wind’ (2012).
127 Baku.
No.2: VIKINGS
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128 Baku.
of the Vikings actually came from the mountains around Baku.
Calm down, dear. There is a credible theory out there that the Vikings originally came from what is now Azerbaijan, and thence travelled north to the Norse lands.
Based on what? Meeting a Swedish blonde waitress in one of the nightclubs?
Right. So, the fierce seafaring nation of the frozen north actually came from a hot land unconnected to any ocean, thousands of miles away.
It’s only a theory, but one postulated by none other than Thor Heyerdahl, who knew a thing or two about Vikings and seafaring. In 1947 he and five crew travelled from Peru to the Polynesian islands, some 7,000km, on a balsa-wood vessel, just to prove that the population of the islands could have originally come from South America. The 101-day voyage was known as the Kon-Tiki Expedition. I’ve heard of that. Wasn’t there a movie, and didn’t it win an Oscar or something?
It sure did – the Oscar for best documentary in 1950. And last year, Norway made another film about the Kon-Tiki, which again got nominated. But sadly that lost out to Amour... But I digress. So, later in his career, Heyerdahl visited Azerbaijan several times and said that he had a ‘growing suspicion’ that the ancestors
Please be serious. Based on 5,000-year-old rock carvings found around Gobustan, west of Baku. According to Heyerdahl, these were ‘identical’ to the ones drawn by the ancestors of the Vikings living along the fjords of Norway millennia later. How were they identical?
The same boat styles are depicted, including the curved lines for the ship’s base and the same vertical lines for crew or raised oars. OK. Let’s run with this. The Vikings made an expedition to Baku. That doesn’t mean…
No, it doesn’t work like that. Heyerdahl argued that since Scandinavia was virtually uninhabitable during the last Ice Age, this means the Vikings’ ancestors must have
developed their water-borne transportation methods there. How did they get to Norway then, which, by my calculations, is over 3,000km away, over land and not water? Hmm?
The theory goes that they travelled up the coast of the Caspian Sea to the mouth of the Volga – Russia’s national river and Europe’s longest – north past what is now Moscow, and perhaps through a network of streams and lakes into the Gulf of Finland, onto the Baltic Sea, skirting what is now Sweden and Denmark (perhaps stopping at Noma for a quick organic bite) and ending up on the Norwegian Atlantic coast. Voilà!
As scAndinAviA wAs virtuAlly uninhAbitAble during the lAst ice Age, the vikings’ Ancestors must hAve migrAted up, from the south. migrated up there, from the south, eventually settling in Scandinavia around 100AD. Interesting. But hold on – wasn’t Heyerdahl’s Polynesian theory later discredited?
It was for a long time, as many anthropologists argued that Polynesia was populated solely from Asia. But recent DNA studies conducted by the University of Oslo suggest that some Polynesian inhabitants actually share the same genes as indigenous American populations. So they could have completed that same Kon-Tiki voyage after all. OK. So let’s say the towering blonde Vikings did come from near Baku, and that they
Any other evidence?
Well, according to Norse folklore, the Viking monarchs were descended from the god Odin, who had travelled there by boat from the land of ‘Aser’. This legendary place was described by a 13th-century historian as being ‘east of the Black Sea and south of the Caucasus mountains’. Bingo – modern-day Azerbaijan. Slightly scary.
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Yes, very. See you in Oslo. I mean Baku.
Words by Caroline davies. illustration by darrel rees.
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Vikings. OK. But this is Baku magazine. Hello?
The Excelsior Hotel Baku is a beautiful ďŹ ve-star luxurious hotel in Baku city. It combines tradition and innovation with modern luxury and a touch of antiquity. The hotel is furnished with a melange of classical architecture and contemporary design elements. Being conveniently located near the cosmopolitan downtown area of Baku, the Excelsior Hotel oďŹ&#x20AC;ers easy access to business, shopping and entertainment centres. Heydar Aliyev International Airport is only 20 minutes away fom the hotel.
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130 Baku.
‘autumn’ by leyla aliyeva
131 Baku.
corbis. getty. seth browarnik.
ottilie Windsor is a UK-based opera producer. Is this your first time here? Yes. What was your first-ever art purchase? A Jonathan Yeo piece, about 16 months ago. Anything caught your eye that you’d like to buy? The Idris Khan works are good. A George Condo piece surprised me; I’d never thought of purchasing him before. The big Bacon piece too. Who do you buy from? Mostly from galleries, art dealers and auction houses. Is the art world a bubble? The contemporary art world is, in that it’s ring-fenced by high prices, but not necessarily in the sense that it might burst.
Favourite artists? Frida Kahlo, Edward Hopper and Francis Bacon (Study for Head of George Dyer, 1967, is pictured above).
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ritA grosse-ruyken is an artist from Germany. What was your first-ever art purchase? Twenty-five paintings from the German constructivist painter Günter Fruhtrunk. Who do you buy from? Directly from the artists or sometimes we just exchange. Do you have enough space to hang your artwork? I have five houses, but I still don’t have enough space. I am planning to construct a museum for my art that would be called The Temple of New Consciousness. I would like to make it from white marble so it is permanent and resembles a new cathedral. It’s something I’ve been planning my entire life. What do you think of Basel? There are marvellous pieces, particularly at Design Miami (pictured below). What are your views on the art world? We need to push things to a higher plane. You must load up the public on every level so when they leave, they feel nourished. This is the future of art. Favourite artist? Me.
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Art BAsel AttrActed its usuAl heAvyweight collector BrigAde this yeAr. Caroline Davies cornered three of them.
Alex B Wright is a film producer from New York. What was your first-ever art purchase? A lithograph by Jacob Lawrence. Anything caught your eye that you’d like to buy? Before I arrived, I saw a great piece in Sotheby’s, but someone got it. It was a Basquiat. Who do you buy from? Not too many auctioneers, but all the other ways. Do you have enough space to hang your artwork? Absolutely. Is the art world a bubble? Definitely. Favourite artists? Warhol and Basquiat (Untitled (Pecho/Oreja), 1982-3, is pictured above.)
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the model, dJ and fashion super-blogger talks about her art addiction, inspiration and autumn fashion collaboration.
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You’re a style blogger, but your blog also covers art... I like to blog
about art exhibitions and art fairs. I feel that my posts become mini artworks, with all the artists’ work and the way I write about what I’m looking at. Do you consider yourself an artist? I’d be inspired to
make my own sculptures, such as the giant Mooches, which are the cartoon characters on my blog. Jeff Koons has inspired me to make my own work and I’ve made my own paintings. I have also designed a capsule collection for [footwear brand] Pretty Ballerinas [out now]. You collect art as well. What’s your favourite piece? I bought a Rebecca
Warren sculpture [Ten (19982008), bronze, pictured] at her exhibition at the Serpentine Gallery [in London, 2009]. It has a cute face engraved in it. The show was beautiful and at the time I couldn’t afford the massive sculpture, so I got this limited edition. Her work is perfect in my eyes and the little piece has so much character.
interview by caroline davies. rex/billy Farrell agency.
does it have a special meaning to you? I used
the sculpture in one of my first blog posts. I created a story where My Little Ponys and ‘Rebecca Warren’s little poo’, as I call it (it kind of looks like a poo), go for a walk around the garden. We all end up on a trampoline, asleep. The piece inspired me to get another one, which I bought at Multiplied art fair. I think [collecting Warren’s work] is a bit addictive. I want to get an even bigger one. Maybe one day, when I have my own garden, I can display them all. It’s my dream to collect art forever. Frieze Art Fair is coming up so I will have a sneak around there.
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Visit bipling.com. 137 Baku.
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Street feaSt
The global dining revolution has taken Baku by storm. With a wealth of new openings this autumn, the city now boasts an über-stylish restaurant scene to match its glittering skyscrapers. The White Garden café (above and left), inside Zaha Hadid’s Heydar Aliyev Centre, is the new lunch spot of choice, where grilled lobster and champagne are served at curvaceous white booths. Across town, authentic dishes (dash kufta, leaf dolma) are the order of the day at Nakhchivan (left). When the Caspian calls, it’s all about Evde Amburan Beach (below left), where updated Italian classics come with a side of sea views. Alternatively, head to the cliff-top Promenade Sunset Bar & Lounge (top left) at the Jumeirah Bilgah Beach Hotel, where kebabs and crispy flat breads are matched with punchy cocktails; make sure to bag a lounger on the easybreezy deck. For foodies, the Caucasus just got cooler.
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Visit: heydaraliyevcenter.az; bit.ly/13JssFH; nakhchivanrest.az; saffron.az.
139 Baku.
PuPPet theatre Festival
Bakuâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Puppet theatre comes alive this autumn with marionette shows and master classes by theatre companies from across the world.
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Tufan
Ski STaTion
opens this winter, just 4km from the ancient city of Gabala. Brand new downhill and cross-country pistes.
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culture club
‘Days of Azerbaijani Culture’ opened in Cannes recently, celebrating the nation’s rich cultural history.
Lenny enny Spangberg & his wife, enn Paul Zilk & Eric Harson.
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Leyla Aliyeva.
The evening’s spectacle.
The First Lady, Mehriban Aliyeva & Robert Hossein.
A spectacular fireworks display kicked off a series of events in Cannes championing Azerbaijani culture, history and cuisine. The First Lady, Mehriban Aliyeva, and Baku’s editor-in-chief Leyla Aliyeva were joined at the event’s opening by Cannes’ glamorous and good plus an international cast of greats, as bright colourful flares and rockets lit up the night.
Gregory Drancourt, Ghass Rouzkhosh & Golan Rouzkhosh.
pop stars Anar Alekperov & Gianni Mercurio.
Christian Sturminger. er er.
One hundred works by Andy Warhol went on display at the Zaha Hadid-designed Heydar Aliyev Centre. Guests including the artist Irina Eldarova, the fashion designer Fakhriya Khalafova and Patrick Moore, of The Andy Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh, US, attended the opening, mingling among Warhol’s Mao and Lenin.
yW Warhol. Lenin (1986), by Andy
Patrick Moore.
Stephane Cardinale. ChriStian roy. dmitry ternovy.
The Andy Warhol retrospective ‘Life, Death & Beauty’ opened at the Heydar Aliyev Centre in Baku.
around a fountain. During my stay, I tried lamb kebabs, pakhlava and Azerbaijani tea, but by far the most fun and extravagant meal was eating caviar for breakfast. The city’s architecture is amazing, with all the new buildings that have sprung up. I thought the Zaha Hadid building that you drive past on the way to the airport was pretty impressive. I was surprised that I hadn’t known more about the city before I visited, because I felt like it was a place that was very much coming to life and becoming really international. Whenever I go somewhere new, I tend to walk the streets. I don’t try to hit all the
tourist spots; I prefer to wander around and get a feel for a place. That’s what I did in Baku. It’s a lovely city – being on the water; it’s amazing. I stayed near the Old Town and it was beautiful. It has lots of carpet shops. I bought myself a rug. The whole East-West blend is very interesting. You can really see how things start to change the more you travel around.
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Polly Morgan is a British artist who specializes in taxidermy.
photograph by tessa angus. pollymorgan.co.uk. breedlondon.com
by Polly Morgan
Tabula rasa 144 Baku.
visited Baku last year and the thing that struck me most was the hospitality of the people – they were incredibly welcoming and friendly. I’ve been to places not a million miles away from the UK, where people were quite hostile at times, so that was really nice. The food was a highlight. I’m a bit of a food tourist; I love going to places that have a strong cuisine. In Baku, I had some great lunches; Karvansarai restaurant, on the edge of the Old Town, was one of my favourites. It has a cool courtyard
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